Program 2017

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Down Under Berlin (DUB) successfully passed the seven-year itch and is "Looking Beyond" - as was the festival motto in 2017. From 13 to 17 September 2017, the festival took its audience on a journey to other worlds, into the hearts of monsters, back to the past, and into the future. 

For the entire program, check out the festival calendar below or the program brochure here.

With a total of 37 films, the festival showed a wide range of genres including drama, animation, thriller, comedy, Indigenous, biopic, experimental, horror, and SciFi. Keeping its promise to bring bring fresh filmmaking from Australia and New Zealand to Berlin, 14 films celebrated their German, 13 their European and even five their international premiere.

Major favorites of the 930 audience members were opening and closing films Jasper Jones by Rachel Perkins and Spookers by Florian Habicht as well as the newly installed segment "The Battle of the Shorts: Australia vs. New Zealand" (Round 1 & Round 2) which filled the screening rooms to the brim.

As becomes for a proper battle, each of the two battle rounds were crowned with a winner film which were also winner and runner-up of the Audience Awards for "Best Short Film": New Zealand's festival hit Madam Black by Ivan Barge 'outpointed' fellow-countryman's festival darling The World In Your Window by Zoe McIntosh. The award for "Best Film" went to Amanda Blue's outstanding documentary Deep Water: The Real Story. Both Audience Awards winners received a subtitling package by major film prize sponsor Lingual Consultancy whereas the battle winners and the runner-up took home a one year premium membership to film network community FilmUp.

Audiences also enjoyed a diverse supporting program such as our festival party at Café Futuro, Oma Marnie's pies after the screening of Matthew Salleh's Barbecue and Slavko Martinov's 'chick-flick' Pecking Order and receptions hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Embassy in Berlin. We cordially thank both Embassies and its staff for their continuous support thoughout the years. We specifically thank Deputy Head of Mission of the New Zealand Embassy Alexandra Smithyman and Angus Acton-Cavanough, 2nd secretary of the Australian Embassy in Berlin, for their contributions to DUB 2017!

Not only at these events but throughout the entire festival, audience members had the opportunity to mingle with attending filmmakers and film teams such as Jess and Michael Newman (The Cycle), Sotiris Dounoukos (Joe Cinque's Consolation), Susan Earl (Deep Storage), Jonathan Wilhelmsson (Waltzing Tilda), Teresa Palmers (Spookers), Marco Mehlitz (OtherLife), as well as Mala Ghedia, Samir Al Hajjar, and Milad Khawam (No Monsters in Berlin)

By 2017, Down Under Berlin has become an integral part of Berlin’s festival scene and is Europe's leading film festival of Australian and New Zealand film. This would not be possible without the support of our many sponsors, supporters and cooperation partners which in 2017 were: Both the Australia now program/Australian Embassy and the New Zealand Embassy, our media and marketing partners Zitty, DIE DRAUSSENWERBER, EXBERLINER, Berliner Fenster, FluxFM, our loyal supporters and advertising customers Adina Apartment Hotels, BierBier, Die.Projektoren, Moviemento Kino, the New Zealand Film Commission, Oma Marnie’s Pies, Rust Sydney, Tim Tam Shop, Lockwood Berlin, and last – but not least – Audience Awards prize sponsors FilmUp and Lingual Consultancy.

Finally, Down Under Berlin and its team of volunteers would like to thank you, the audience, without whom, we could not and would not want run.

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