Program

06.05.2026

Opening Film / Short Film Program

Side B: Manifesting in Dust

Beneath the surface, these films reveal hidden facets. From maternal tapes to patriarchal undercurrents, they unearth immigrant struggles and cinematic ruins — manifesting forgotten voices and whispers.

20:30 | Metropolis | 77min | Q&A

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CAA Special

All Quiet at Sunrise

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

13:30 | HfbK Kino (Filmhaus) | 101min | Q&A

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07.05.2026

Feature Program

Flying Tigers

From her mother’s fractured memories, Madhusree Dutta revisits the Flying Tigers’ route between Assam and Kunming. Family history, archives, and borderlands entwine in a journey through war, memory, and connection. (Zhiwen DING)

19:00 | Metropolis | 105 min | Q&A

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CAA Special

Snow Leopard

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

13:00 | Studio Kino | 109min | Q&A

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CAA Special

Closer to Me

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

16:00 | Studio Kino | 95min | Q&A

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08.05.2026

Short Film Program

Earth Murmurs, Words Breathe

In these words, we read mountains, forests, and people. Languages inscribe landscapes, carving memories. Moving images open space to breathe, to imagine, and to commemorate home. (Pincent LIU)

19:30 | Metropolis | 83 min | Q&A

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Feature Program

Mothertongue

An actress, having lost her mother tongue, returns from the capital Beijing to her hometown Chengdu, rediscovering it with a lingering taste of estrangement, accompanied by a Shanghainese Dongdong. In a deserted, once state-owned film studio, wandering souls are entangling… (Yuchen ZHAO)

22:00 | Metropolis | 122 min | Q&A

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CAA Special

Raindrops on a Roof

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

14:00 | Warburg-Haus | 106min | Q&A

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09.05.2026

Mid-length Film Program

Intersecting in Separation

An apartment stages the intro of two separate lives; an audition room echoes a past separation and improvises an intro to something renewed: two spaces held in openness where performance and life intermingle. (Yuchen ZHAO)

12:00 | Lichtmeß Kino | 107 min | Q&A

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Feature Program

Prairie Requiem

Wang Qingren's twenty-year gaze transforms the North China Plain into a battlefield of tradition and power. Clinging to idealism while navigating pragmatic survival, Lin Zhongshu's stubborn quest eventually withers under the watchful eyes of authority and human nature. (Zhichao ZHU)

14:40 | Lichtmeß Kino | 128 min | Q&A

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Feature & Short Program

Bodies in Becoming

Becoming unfolds through rupture and bodily experience, where identities are continuously reshaped, unsettled, and lived beyond stability and fixed meanings. (Run YUAN)

17:40 | Lichtmeß | 83min | Q&A

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Short Film Program

Relationships

Across time and space, people move through relationships in their own ways, sensing shifts in physical closeness or emotional attachment in brief moments. Through cinema, these relationships reflect ourselves. (Yao SU)

20:00 | Lichtmeß | 122min | Q&A

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10.05.2026

Short Film Program

Near Yet Apart

People try to meet somewhere in between. Words arrive unevenly, experiences remain partly their own — something is shared, but never completely. (Jiawen ZHANG)

12:00 | Lichtmeß | 91min | Q&A

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Mid-length & Short Program

The Erased, The Embodied

From a real-life figure to a fabled character, this pair of experimental documentaries reveals the entwined politics of gender, identity, and cultural nationalism through acts of rediscovery and reexamination. (Rosine Lin HE)

14:40 | Lichtmeß | 90min | Q&A

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Feature Program

Ballad of the Warm Grave

Filmmakers Junsen ZHOU and Kun DAI navigate the boundary between home video and observational documentary in a story about ZHOU’s own family. The film reveals the power of cinema as a tool for reflecting on life, with all its twists and turns. (Maja Korbecka)

17:10 | Lichtmeß | 149min | Q&A

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Closing Film: Short Program

Grounds of Auto-Fiction

This program approaches auto-fiction as a spatial and political apparatus through which reality is continuously reconfigured by haunted spaces, narrative structures, and contemporary systems of image production. (Rosine Lin HE)

20:35 | Lichtmeß | 82min | Q&A

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11.05.2026

CAA Special

Beyond the Sky

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

13:00 | Studio Kino | 90min | Q&A

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CAA Special

Walking Past the Future

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

15:40 | Studio Kino | 127min | Q&A

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05.05.2026 - 10.05.2026

Special Event: Exhibition

Inorganic Poetics 无机诗学

As part of the Chinese Film Festival Hamburg 2026

14:00-20:00 | MOM ART SPACE | Valentinskamp 34A, Hamburg

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06.05.2026 - 11.05.2026

CAA Special Program

CFFH × Contemporary Poetic Moving Visuals Festival - China Academy of Art · 2026

School of Film Art in CAA collaborates with Chinese Film Festival Hamburg to present contemporary Chinese-language visual arts and films, conduct academic dialogues, and foster cultural exchange.

06–11 May 2026 | Studio Kino | HfbK Kino | Warburg-Haus |

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