The graduation film ‘quicksand’ from the ifs International Film School Cologne is celebrating its premiere at the 46th Max Ophüls Film Festival (20-26 January 2025). The drama will have its world premiere in the short film competition and will compete with 22 other short films for the jury prize and an audience award for the best short film, both of which are endowed with 5,000 euros each.

In ‘quicksand’ (Director: Nevin Hahn, Script: Sylvia Sargisyan, Producer: Beate Freier, DoP: Paul Nägl, Production Design: Benedikt Runkel, Editing: Patrick Hanemann, Sounddesign: Leo Muheim) 18-year-old Marco has made it: he has just been selected as a young talent for a well-known football club. It's the golden ticket out of the small village and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to play with the big boys. Between wild Schützenfest celebrations and emerging fears, he has to decide whether he wants to remain the big hero in the small village or take a step into the unknown. ‘The milieu is very well condensed and realistically told, with football and team-mates dominating everyday life. But behind the extremely loud and quick-tempered masculinity, a vulnerability and fear of the unknown future can be recognised, which is convincingly brought out by the director,’ says the festival in the invitation letter.

Two ifs graduates have been nominated for the newly established ‘Max Ophüls Preis: Treatment Development - ZDF/Das kleine Fernsehspiel’: writer, director and producer Su-Jin Song with the coming-of-age drama ‘Cacao, der Tod und ich’ and director Simon Schneider for ‘Der Stolz einer Mutter (AT)’ (satire / psychological thriller). The award, a treatment development contract worth 10,000 euros with the ZDF editorial team, will be presented for the first time for a treatment idea for a feature-length debut film.
In addition, numerous productions with the participation of ifs graduates can be seen at the festival: The film ‘Nachts, wenn die Hunde bellen’, for which Chris Poulles is responsible for the visual design, is screening in the medium-length film competition. Eric Bitencourt's directorial work ‘Uncanny Home’ can be seen in the short film competition. The series ‘Späti’, which was edited by Jeannine Compère, will be shown in the MOP series programme. The series ‘Schwarze Früchte’ (production design: Jessica Kaczmarek) will also be shown there. The films ‘Greetings from Mars’ (Editing: Nicole Kortlüke) and ‘Akiko - The Flying Monkey’ (Art Department Coordinator: Cedric Engelbrecht) can be seen in the children's and youth film series. Alumna Kim Hausner was responsible for the camera for the short film ‘Melodies of Barking Dogs’, which is part of the KURZ.FILM.TOUR. - The German Short Film Award.

The Max Ophüls Film Festival is one of the most renowned platforms for up-and-coming filmmakers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This year, 57 films will be shown in the four competition categories of feature film, documentary, medium-length film and short film, as well as 151 films in total.