Aachen is not the kind of city where you expect a new film festival to suddenly appear.

This is a city of engineers, laboratories and research institutes — the kind of place where conversations tend to revolve around algorithms rather than auteurs. Just a few kilometers away, cities like Cologne boast packed cinemas and a long-standing film culture. Meanwhile, Aachen recently learned that its local Cineplex multiplex will close in 2026.

Not exactly the backdrop you’d choose if you were planning to launch a film festival.

And yet, that’s precisely what happened.

After about eighteen months orbiting a deceptively simple idea — what if Aachen had its own film festival? — film critic and programmer Niklas Michels decided to stop asking if it could work and start figuring out how. Together with collaborators Kalpok Guha and Milena Baumgart, the result was the first edition of FilmFest Aachen.

On paper, the plan sounded slightly insane: around thirty films programmed across a single weekend in a city that doesn’t necessarily scream cinephile capital.

Spoiler: it worked. And surprisingly well.

Over the course of three days, the festival unfolded through seven different sections — Competition, Öcher Competition, Fragments of Resistance, Abseits: Dystopia, Shorts, Midnight Screenings and Special Screenings. Like any festival worth its salt, the real test wasn’t just the films themselves, but the curatorial instinct tying them together.

My first stop was Holy Electricity (2024), by Georgian director Tato Kotetishvili. The film moves through everyday life in Georgia with an observational calm that gradually reveals something deeper. Through fragments of daily routines and small visual essays, the film touches on themes ranging from tradition to gender identity, all without ever feeling heavy-handed.

After a short break — barely enough time to process what I had just watched — it was time for the midnight screenings.

The opening slot went to MadS (2024), directed by David Moreau. Its premise can be summarized in one sentence: what if a zombie apocalypse felt like a very bad drug trip?

Now, zombies have never really been my thing. But this one worked. The film leans heavily on sound design, a sharp musical direction and a camera that never seems to lose its nerve. Suspense builds through eerily familiar environments — streets, apartments, empty corners — making the occasional jump scare feel less like a gimmick and more like a natural reflex.

Day two shifted the focus to the Öcher Competition, a section highlighting more locally connected productions.

Among them was Goldregen (2023), by Asena Cakir, a short film that slowly unearths buried trauma while confronting the uneasy process of healing. Quiet, intimate, and emotionally precise.

In a completely different register, Farfilia (2023) by Ina Farjam explores the relationship between a father and daughter through experimental dance. There are no spoken dialogues — only movement, gestures and a sequence of images that feel closer to visual essays than conventional storytelling. According to the director herself, it was “a very fun project to make, experimental and very cinematic.” Fun fact: the mirror that repeatedly appears in the film was bought on eBay.

Humor entered the program with Project Stargate (2025) by Regina Chitralla, a story about a struggling philosophy student who somehow ends up working at a government physics research center. What we saw was actually just the pilot of a larger project, but it already hinted at a chaotic and self-aware sense of comedy. During the Q&A, the director offered a refreshingly honest reflection: “Writing comedy is easy… you just have to find what actually makes you laugh.” Later she added something even more revealing: “Sometimes I felt like the main character — like everyone else knew more than me.” Maybe impostor syndrome is more universal than we like to admit.

Local collaboration also played a role. The Licorice Incident (2025), produced between Filmstudio and RWTH Aachen University, takes the city itself as a backdrop. Through a series of light, often awkward conversations, the film captures the strange mix of humor and existential anxiety that tends to accompany early adulthood.

One of the festival’s most compelling narrative pieces was Bubbles (2025) by Sebastian Husak. Over ninety minutes, the film follows two former friends reconnecting after years of distance and unresolved tension. The story moves between nostalgia, humor and moments of genuine discomfort, building a quiet but persistent suspense. After briefly speaking with the director, it became clear that the film invites multiple interpretations. For me, it ultimately revolves around something painfully familiar: how relationships shape who we are — and how easily they fracture.

Themes of home, displacement and belonging surfaced strongly in several shorts. Monument (2024), by Maksim Avdeev, reconstructs a father–son relationship through archival footage, recorded phone calls and family photographs. The result is a deeply personal collage where memory and politics intertwine.

Meanwhile, She Crossed (2025), directed by Daisy Ziyan Zhang, captures an unexpected connection between a student and a Colombian cleaning worker living in the United States. In just twenty minutes, the film manages to convey something many immigrants recognize instantly: the quiet exhaustion of living in another language and the persistent longing for home.

One of the festival’s most fascinating entries was Happyend (2024), by Neo Sora, son of legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. After directing the moving documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus, Sora now ventures into fiction with a dystopian story set in a Japanese high school where new systems of surveillance begin to reshape student life. The film balances political tension with moments of youthful rebellion — all underscored by a musical sensibility that inevitably echoes his father’s legacy.

Politics and activism came to the forefront in Avant Drag (2024) by Fil Ieropoulos, a documentary following ten drag performers navigating police brutality, discrimination and cultural resistance. The film blends raw testimonies with striking visual symbolism, extravagant makeup and an unapologetically confrontational aesthetic.

Finally, A Light That Never Goes Out (2025), by Lauri-Matti Parppei, closes the journey with something surprisingly intimate: the creative process itself. The film follows Pauli, a 29-year-old flutist returning home after a personal breakdown. As he reconnects with music alongside an old classmate, he begins to question everything he once believed about discipline, talent and artistic success. For anyone working in creative fields, the film hits close to home — exposing the fragile cocktail of fear, ego, doubt and necessity that fuels the act of making art.

By Sunday night, the numbers were already in: around a thousand tickets sold and screening rooms that felt very much alive. FilmFest Aachen began as a simple question — what if we tried? Three days later, the only question left was: when are we doing this again?

Thirty films, a handful of surprises, a few genuinely great discoveries and the reassuring feeling that cinema still finds its audience, even in places where you wouldn’t necessarily expect it. So yes, the first edition is officially over.

Lights on. People leaving the theatre. The usual festival fatigue setting in. As for me — I’m on my way back home. But if this is how it starts, someone better save me a seat for the next edition. I’ll definitely be back.

Special thanks to the FilmFest Aachen 2025 team for their warm welcome and generous invitation — particularly Niklas Michels, Milena Baumgart and Kalpok Guha.
Long live cinema. And long live FilmFest Aachen.