2025
Screened 26 Films · Theme: 扩延边界 | Expanding Boundaries
2024
Screened 35 Films · Theme: Film Plus
2023
Screened 26 Films · Theme: 夜行 | Night Walk
Edition Focus
Chinese Film Festival Hamburg 2025
Theme: 扩延边界 | Expanding Boundaries
A four day showcase of independent Chinese cinema featuring a special focus on new voices, documentary works, and cross regional co productions.
Final jury members
A panel of filmmakers, producers, and critics from China and Europe.
Guo Keyu | 郭柯宇
Chinese actress. At 17, she became the youngest Best Actress winner at China’s Hundred Flowers Awards and the first Chinese actress to claim the top prize at the Shanghai International Film Festival for Red Cherry (1995). Following a decade-long hiatus, her starring role in Brief History of a Family (2023) screened at Berlinale and the Sundance Film Festival. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2024 Golden Rooster Awards for Another Day of Hope, she is widely praised for her nuanced artistry.
Christopher Small
Writer living in Prague, Czech Republic. Editor of Outskirts Film Magazine and part of the Locarno Film Festival’s editorial and publications team. He also programs films and occasionally makes them.
Helena Wittmann
Artist and filmmaker based in Hamburg, Germany. Her films, including Human Flowers of Flesh (2022) and Drift (2017), have screened internationally at film festivals and exhibitions and received awards. She teaches at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts and Elias Querejeta Zine Eskola in San Sebastian, Spain. She also creates installation works and collaborates as DoP with various directors and artists.
Zhen Zhang | 张真
Professor and director of the Asian Film and Media Initiative at New York University. As curator, she has programmed film series for Reel China Biennial at NYU, Film Society at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, MoMA, and Women Make Waves International Film Festival. She has also served on numerous film festival juries. Her creative work ranges from poetry, experimental memoir, filmmaking, and performance.
Second round jury
Six jurors reviewing the second round selections.
Ocean Chin | 秦海
Taiwanese director and DP. FAMU alumnus. Directed A Year Apart (2023) and worked as DP on various shorts and features. Selected for Golden Horse Film Academy in 2018.
Qian Han | 韩倩
Born in Wuhan, studied in Rome and Paris. Her art explores time, memory, and fragile materials to link family history with collective memory and space. She has exhibited internationally.
Mickey Lai
Malaysian director. WAShhh won Locarno77 Pardino d’Oro. Alumna of Golden Horse Film Academy and Locarno Spring Academy, she explores identity and mortality through fiction and documentary.
Faezeh Nikoozad
Iranian filmmaker and video artist in Hamburg. Explores migration, identity, and the intersection of the personal and political through documentary and experimental visual storytelling.
Xun Yuan | 袁勋
Award-winning documentary director and cinematographer. Blends Eastern and Western cultures through a unique artistic expression. His film won the CFFH Jury Award in 2024.
Kailuo Zhuo | 卓楷罗
Born in Panjin, China. Graduated from and now teaches at Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts. Works across fiction and documentary as screenwriter, director, and educator.
First round jury
Eleven jurors from film, research, and art.
Amarsanaa Battulga
Mongolian film critic and PhD researcher. Alumnus of Berlinale Talent Press. Served on juries at Locarno and Golden Ger. Published in Die Welt, Cineuropa, and Documentary Magazine.
Zhiwen Ding (they/them)
Studied screenwriting at Beijing Film Academy, fictional direction and editing at HFF Munich, and is pursuing an MA in Film Studies at FU Berlin. Explores queer-feminist views, identity, migration, and family.
Jinhyun Kim
Korean filmmaker studying at KHM Cologne. Explores personal and collective experience under dominant narratives. Blue, Woman, Dress (2023) screened at DMZ Docs, BIFF, and Hamburg SFF.
Pincent Liu
Programmer for Wuhan Photography Art Centre and Wuhan Art Book Fair. Programs, edits, and translates for Wuhan Bailin Film Festival, DUFANG FILM PROGRAM, and Hainan Island IFF.
Tanita Olbrich
Berlin-based artist and filmmaker. Studied at HFBK Hamburg with Angela Schanelec and Jeanne Faust. Her work has shown at Grotto Berlin, Kunsthaus Hamburg, Kunstverein Kassel, and festivals.
Hanqi Sheng
Hamburg-based filmmaker and director of CFFH. Holds MAs from China Academy of Art and HFBK Hamburg. Her award-winning works have screened at Visions du Reel, DOK Leipzig, and more.
Yao Su
Filmmaker and artist based in Germany. Studied directing at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts and is now at KHM Cologne. Works with narrative and experimental films exploring memory and landscape.
Freya Woo
Chinese filmmaker and lecturer at UCA London. Directed Reaction, awarded in Shanghai, Tokyo, and Rome. Contributed to works such as Shadow (2018, dir. Yimou Zhang), Ganapath, and others.
Run Yuan
Independent curator based in Berlin with a background in literature and media. Curates interdisciplinary, experimental, and Asian-focused projects exploring narrative and immersion.
Jiawen Zhang
PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of Bamberg. Founder of 706 Hamburger, a space for dialogue, critical exchange, and cross-cultural interaction.
Zhichao Zhu
Visual artist based in Shanghai and Hamburg, PhD candidate at HFBK Hamburg, and co-founder of CFFH. His work explores personal memory amid China’s socio-political change and has been shown internationally.
Award winners
Celebrating outstanding filmmaking across categories.
Jury’s Award
Visual Innovation
Life is Snow
Among this year’s submissions, we were delighted to discover a film that investigates the shifts between generations of migrants with classical narrative precision. The film draws power from its concentrated storytelling.
Narrative Depth
The First Photograph
An experimental short tracing a father’s exile and diaspora through archives, maps, and family album negatives. A brave journey questioning time, memory, and images.
Audience Choice Award
Audience Choice Award
An Unfinished Film
Ye Lou · Singapore, Germany
Special Mention
Visual Innovation
Before Then (O Ma)
An intimately crafted autobiographical documentary layered with fragile recollections and a profound intergenerational bond.
Narrative Depth
The Periphery of the Base
A cinematic eye for the tension between monumental construction, harsh geography, and human fragility, pushing documentary language into abstracted registers of the real.
Special events
In Between And Never There - No 1. - Chinese Diaspora in St. Pauli
Partner: Millerntorwache
Curator: Bettina Freimann
In Between And Never There is an artistic activation of the Millerntorwache, curated by Bettina Freimann. The project opens with Nostalgia Machines, a video work by Hong Kong-based artist duo Zheng Mahler, which examines techno-orientalism, nostalgia, and speculative futures through the lens of identity, belonging, and geopolitical power shifts. Set within historic architecture, the immersive video installation creates a dynamic tension between forgotten past and speculative futures, between inside and outside.
About the Curator
Bettina Freimann is currently the Project Director of the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026. As an independent curator and Sinologist, she focuses on contemporary art from China and Asia, with a strong interest in transcultural perspectives. She has realized projects for CHINA TIME 2018 and 2022, India Week, and the Fotofestiwal Łódź. From 2016 to 2021, she co-curated the Hamburg-based art space Âme Nue. She has also developed and led cultural projects for the Confucius Institute Hamburg, the Goethe-Institut Beijing, and the Hamburg Ministry of Justice.
Crew members
Festival Director / Founder
Hanqi Sheng
Festival Founder
Zhichao Zhu
Programmer / Curator
Zhiwen Ding, Jiawen Zhang, Pincent Liu, Yao Su
Curator / Programmer Video Art
Bettina Freimann
Head of Festival Production
Biqiong Pan
Head of Press & Communication
Run Yuan
Head of Event Coordination
Xiaowen Xu
Communication & PR
Jiayue Li
Social Media Coordinator
Cheng Qian, Lucián Merlín-Völckers
Web Developer
Fan Xu
UX Designer
Di He
Music & Technical Coordinator
Gretchen Fan Weber
Graphic Designer
Jan Johan Draaistra, Qifan Zhou
Photographer
Mingyu Han, Wei Wang
Project Coordinator
Yingzi Chen
Photo gallery
