KinoFest 2025: German Cinema Looks at Family in All Its Evolving Forms
KinoFest 2025 brings 14 German films to three Indonesian cities with a theme centered on the changing idea of family. Through dramas, documentaries, and bold contemporary stories, the festival shows how family can be a place of comfort, conflict, or reinvention.
KinoFest 2025 arrives this year with a sharp, timely focus: exploring how the idea of family keeps shifting across generations, cultures, and personal histories. Presented by Goethe-Institut and held across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the festival returns for its fourth edition with screenings in Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya from 25 to 30 November 2025. Fourteen films from 2023 to 2025 make up the lineup, all screened for free and curated as a living map of how German cinema examines family structures in a rapidly changing world.
In Jakarta, KinoFest 2025 opens at Blok M Plaza XXI with Köln 75, a new drama from Ido Fluk that premiered at this year’s Berlinale Special Gala. The film revisits the true story of Vera Brandes, the young music fan who famously organized Keith Jarrett’s legendary 1975 Köln Concert. From there, the festival moves through Taman Ismail Marzuki and Shoemaker Studios with a mix of dramas, documentaries, and films that push the boundaries of what “family” can mean.
Across this year’s program, the idea of family stretches well beyond blood ties. The films look at homes shaped by work, migration, conflict, shared convictions, and even rebellion. Some ask whether family remains a place of unconditional comfort or if it has become a network formed by choice. Others focus on tensions created when personal desires and cultural expectations do not line up. Several titles lean into the darker corners of domestic life, where affection can turn into control or manipulation behind closed doors.
Curator Lisabona Rahman highlights how German cinema captures this complexity through history, ideology, and social shifts. Many of the selected films challenge the assumption that tradition always holds a family together. Sometimes bonds grow stronger when characters break the rules and build new ways of caring for each other. Motherhood is also seen through a contemporary lens that embraces strength, fear, and upended roles instead of simple symbolism.
KinoFest 2025 remains a collaborative project between eight Goethe-Institut offices across Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. This year’s festival continues that spirit of regional exchange while inviting Indonesian audiences to see how questions about care, belonging, selfhood, and heritage echo across borders.
Screenings run throughout the week at Blok M Plaza XXI, Taman Ismail Marzuki, and Shoemaker Studios, with a wide range of works including Riefenstahl, Die Polizeiakademie, Zwei zu eins, Woodwalkers, Das Licht, Reproduktion, and a rare screening of Margarethe von Trotta’s Rosa Luxemburg. The complete schedule is available at goethe.de/indonesia/kinofest.
KinoFest 2025 continues to show that cinema remains one of the most revealing ways to understand how communities evolve. This year’s films remind us that family is not a fixed idea. It grows, bends, and sometimes breaks. It can be a refuge, a battleground, or a home rebuilt from scratch. And in that wide emotional range, audiences may see a piece of their own story reflected back at them. Please find more information on KinoFest page.
Tuesday, 25 November – Blok M Plaza XXI
• 19.00 WIB: Köln 75 (2025) by Ido Fluk (invitation only)
Wednesday, 26 November – Taman Ismail Marzuki
• 15.30 WIB at Studio Sjuman Djaja: Die Polizeiakademie (2024) by Moritz Schulz
• 16.00 WIB at Studio Asrul Sani: Das letzte Tabu (2024) by Manfred Oldenburg
• 18.30 WIB at Studio Sjuman Djaja: Grüße vom Mars (2024) by Sarah Winkenstette
• 19.00 WIB at Studio Asrul Sani: Riefenstahl (2024) by Andres Veiel
Thursday, 27 November – Taman Ismail Marzuki
• 16.00 WIB at Studio Asrul Sani: Die Polizeiakademie (2024) at Moritz Schulz
• 17.00 WIB at Studio Sjuman Djaja: Das letzte Tabu (2024) by Manfred Oldenburg
• 18.30 WIB at Studio Sjuman Djaja: Riefenstahl (2024) by Andres Veiel
• 19.00 WIB at Studio Asrul Sani: Zwei zu eins (2023) by Natja Brunckhorst
Friday, 28 November – Taman Ismail Marzuki
• 14.00 WIB at Studio Asrul Sani: Reproduktion (2025) by Katharina Pethke
• 16.00 WIB at Studio Sjuman Djaja: Grüße vom Mars (2024) by Sarah Winkenstette
• 18.30 WIB at Studio Sjuman Djaja: Zwei zu eins (2023) by Natja Brunckhorst
• 19.00 WIB at Studio Asrul Sani: Vena (2024) by Chiara Fleischhacker
Saturday, 29 November – Shoemaker Studios
• 11.00 WIB: Woodwalkers (2024) by Damian John Harper
• 13.30 WIB: Heldin (2025) by sutradara Petra Volpe
• 16.00 WIB: Vena (2024) by sutradara Chiara Fleischhacker
• 18.30 WIB: Die Saat des heiligen Pfeigenbaums (2024) by Mohammad Rasoulof
Sunday, 30 November – Shoemaker Studios
• 13.30 WIB: Rosa Luxemburg (1986) by Margarethe von Trotta
• 16.30 WIB: Das Licht (2025) by Tom Tykwer
Also read: KinoFest 2024 Brings the Latest German Cinema to Southeast Asia and the Pacific
