The Ecumenical Jury appointed by INTERFILM and SIGNIS at the 2025 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival (IFFMH) awarded its €2,500 prize to ‘Gharaq’ (Sink) by Zain Duraie and gave a special mention to ‘L'intérêt d'Adam’ (Adam's Sake) by Laura Wandel. The festival jury awarded the International Newcomer Award for the best film in the international competition to ‘Nighttime Sounds’ by Zhongchen Zhang from China. The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Award for best screenplay went to Canadian-Hungarian director and writer Sophy Romvari for ‘Blue Heron’. The Fipresci (Féderation International de la Presse Cinématographique) jury honoured ‘Rietland’ (Reedland) by Sven Bresser from the Netherlands.
The 74th Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival 2025 opened on 6 November with the Iranian film ‘Inside Amir’ (Daroon-e Amir) by Amir Azizi, which premiered at the Giornate degli autori in Venice in 2025 and won the award for Best Director. In addition to the International Competition ‘On the Rise’ with 16 films, there were other festival sections: ‘Pushing the Boundaries’ with films by established directors who explore the aesthetic boundaries of film, ‘Filmscapes’ with serial, essayistic and documentary films of varying lengths from the current year, the retrospective dedicated to the ‘aesthetics of grand emotions in melodrama’, ‘Young Film Festival’ with films for children and young people, and ‘Facing New Challenges’ with moving image productions beyond cinema. The Ecumenical Jury awards its Prize, worth €2,500, to a film in the International Competition.