“Films that move you”

The Girls Go Movie short film festival has been bringing girls and young women in front of and behind the camera encouraging them to share their view of the world and themselves. Why hasn’t the aim of the Mannheim festival lost any of its relevance since it first started in 2004? Here comes an interview with project manager Kathrin Lämmle.

The forum cultural centre for young people is buzzing with activity this afternoon. We are in the offices on the ground floor, where employees are clarifying the final details of an upcoming concert evening, while one floor up, the Theaterbande team reviews the German children’s theatre festival. Meanwhile, the studio hosts a ceramics workshop, where children are arriving to work with clay. Experimentation with software and hardware takes place just afterwards in the Club room. The forum is a place that is bursting with creativity. It hosted a Mannheimer Mädchenfilmtage film festival for girls back in 2002. The response was great so that Ruth Hutter, who has been the artistic director all along, decided to turn it into something bigger together with Karin Heinelt, then head of the forum, and Gertrud Rettenmeier from the city’s youth development programme. The result was the creation of the Girls Go Movie short film festival, which was held for the first time in 2004.

Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube.
Mehr erfahren

Video laden

YouTube immer entsperren

Media scientist Kathrin Lämmle took over project management in 2013 and quickly realised that the festival, which brings girls in front of and behind the camera, will make a big difference. Girls Go Movie has since built up a reputation that extends far beyond Mannheim. Over 30 mentors look after hundreds of participating girls and young women ages 12 to 27. The participants create films with professional support from the initial idea and script to filming and editing. A good 60 films are submitted to the festival every year. Films that move, affect and surprise you—and certainly never bore you.

Ms Lämmle, as project manager, you examine around 60 short films for Girls Go Movie every year. Has it become monotonous? 
Lämmle: No. I look forward to it every year. The screening week and the festival—this is the best time of the year. Because we feel every single time how great the response to our work is and how much trust the girls have in us..

Trust, why?
Lämmle: The participants deal with very personal issues in their films. These include grievous stories, such as experiences of flight or abuse. There are films in every festival that move me a lot and bring tears to my eyes. They are so pure, so real. It’s a great gift to watch these films.

Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube.
Mehr erfahren

Video laden

YouTube immer entsperren

Do the girls deal mainly with personal experiences there?
Lämmle: Often, but not always. Our festival basically reflects the topics that are being discussed in society. Many films in recent years have dealt with the coronavirus crisis and the war in Ukraine. However, there are topics that have been with us for decades, such as gender roles, coming to terms with one’s own body and self-esteem. The screening week is kind of a seismograph showing us the topics that are urgent for this generation.

Does this help you better understand the young generation?
Lämmle: Absolutely! That’s why I can only advise politicians to visit our festival. They mainly talk about young people—not with them. At Girls Go Movie, they have the chance to listen and talk to them directly.

Kathrin Lämmle comes from Göppingen and came to Mannheim to study. She studied media and communication studies at the local university and also completed her doctorate there—on intellectuality in television. She has always been interested in film as a medium, because she likes to immerse herself in well-told stories and worlds and because films always reflect social developments. She joined Girls Go Movie in 2012 and quickly became an integral part of the festival, the team and the forum. A short time later, she took over as project manager. In 2015 she also became head of the forum cultural centre for young people.

What was it that inspired you about Girls Go Movie so that you wanted to work in this project?
Lämmle: I wanted to work more in real life again and no longer with theory. And the aim of Girls Go Movie of promoting a female perspective of film immediately appealed to me. I also realised that the project would not lose its topicality soon. I had sent an unsolicited application while the team was only looking for a secretary at the time. But all of us realised already during the interview that we would get on well. So we decided in favour of each other. And as soon as the opportunity arose, I took on more responsibility.

Is there actually still a need for a film festival that is only aimed at girls and young women? Lämmle: Definitely. The film industry is still dominated by males, especially in the technical professions. Only three women had won the Oscar for best director by 2024. A female cinematographer has never won. Yes, things are changing—but far too slowly.

Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube.
Mehr erfahren

Video laden

YouTube immer entsperren

But what can an all-female team achieve that a co-ed group can’t?
Lämmle: It can avoid clichéd role reflexes in behaviour! In co-ed groups, it’s often the case that the boys push ahead and take control of the technology. The girls then stand in front of the camera or do the make-up. But we want to introduce women especially to technical professions as well. In all-female teams, it’s clear that one of us has to do it. That’s when those lovely ‘aha’ moments happen: ‘Oh, I’m not as technically untalented as I had always thought’. They simply haven’t had the space to try out things in these fields. We create that space!

The young people can try their hand attending the Girls Go Movie holiday camps, for example. The courses always take place during the Whitsun and summer holidays and are aimed at 12- to 17-year-old girls from the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region. They create their own films, usually for the very first time, accompanied by experienced mentors and then submit the films to the festival. Individual coaching is also available. The festival team selects the works that will be shown at the festival from all submitted films. An external panel of experts awards prizes according to two age categories: from 12 to 17 and from 18 to 27 years. The latter is divided again—into Beginner, Advanced and Professional. And a girls’ panel of judges also awards prizes to their favourite films.

How would you explain the success over the years of Girls Go Movie?
Lämmle: As a medium, film works on so many levels. It teaches technical skills as well as media skills. By making the films themselves, the participants get a new view of moving images that goes much deeper compared to the idea they have when they just consume them. And the films are a great way for them to communicate with the world, of course.

What do the girls take away from participating?
Lämmle: They experience how they and the issues that concern them are taken seriously. They learn to work in a team, to compromise and to develop a certain tolerance for frustration. But above all they learn to be proud of themselves. The festival shows the films exactly where the participants normally watch blockbusters—on the big screen at the Cineplex cinema. That’s exciting, of course. The fact that their films are shown alongside the works of female film students is greatly encouraging too.

Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube.
Mehr erfahren

Video laden

YouTube immer entsperren

Do any of the girls actually venture into the film industry later on?
Lämmle: Yes, and quite a few! There is Kiana Naghshineh, for example, who took part in Girls Go Movie in 2008, later studied animation at the film academy in Ludwigshafen and was even nominated for the 2018 students’ Oscar. There is Nina Gibler, a young deaf woman who was inspired by us to take an artistic pathway and quit her former job. She ran an inclusive film holiday camp as a mentor in 2024.

What do you wish for the future?
Lämmle: Reliable funding would be helpful. We’re still going from year to year. We are still a project—even though we’ve long since become an institution. We always have to fight for our budget whereas we’d much rather put our energy into the contents of the matter. For we all want to do this for many years to come.

www.girlsgomovie.de