About Us

GEGENkino festival is an international film festival that has been taking place in Leipzig, Germany, since 2014. Working collectively and driven by cinephile passion, we have set ourselves to question film and its aesthetic means of expression, to bring overlooked gems of world cinema to Leipzig, to provide space on screen for resistant positions and marginalised narratives or projects. It is our aim to challenge hardened viewing habits with unusual perceptions. From the beginning, our partner venues UT ConnewitzLuru Kino at the Spinnerei and Schaubühne Lindenfels are GEGENkino’s pounding heart, expanded by cooperation partners and locations like Institut fuer Zukunft (IFZ)Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Grassimuseum or Paul-Gerhadt-Church. GEGENkino is attended by about 1,000 spectators a year.

Our idea of film and video art goes beyond the setting of a classical screening. We are interested in the sensual interactions of space, images, sounds in all their eclectic features and variants. Therefore, performances of Quimera Rosa, Jaap Blonk, Peaches, Doron Sadja or Pedro Maia & Robert Lippok belong to our programme as well as live scorings by musicians like Felix Kubin, Jozef van Wissem, Alec Empire, Les Trucs, Circle & Mika Taanila and Tomaga. In addition to that, discoursive formats take place every year: in film talks, lectures and discussions, we try to contextualise attitudes, to create social and intellectual spaces that encourage a dialogue between scientists, artists and audience. With topically curated installations and exhibitions, for instance dealing with female perspectives on desire or the production of truth in documentary forms, we invite people to do some visual strolling inside the historic ballroom of Schaubühne Lindenfels. Often, audiovisual works come to life through their materiality and its history. Therefore, we try to enjoy the purring and rattling of 16mm and 35mm projectors as often as possible.