Mannheim-Heidelberg 2026

The International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg is the second oldest German film festival after the Berlinale. It celebrates innovation as well as narrative and aesthetic courage. It acts as a compass and a trend scout, discovering new talented directors and presenting visionaries, opening up horizons and revitalizing the historical. The IFFMH creates a social experience context. As a mediator and networker of different cultural scenes, the IFFMH creates spaces for exchange between filmmakers and audiences. Among the filmmakers who showed their early work in Mannheim-Heidelberg are François Truffaut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Angela Schanelec, Atom Egoyan, Thomas Vinterberg, Derek Cianfrance, Hong Sang-soo, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Guillaume Nicloux. Our jury of three will award one films from The On The Rise competition, the core of the festival and a stage for outstanding directorial talent, featuring only first and second features.