Founded by the State of Schleswig-Holstein and the Government of the Kaliningrad Region in accordance with the Memorandum on Regional Cooperation, the German-Russian Documentary Film Festival “Territorium Film” first took place in 2011. Due to its history and unique geographic location, Kaliningrad is ideally situated to facilitate a dialogue between cultures.

At first only Russian and German films were featured in the program. Over the years, filmmakers from all over the Baltic Sea Region were invited into the fold. Altogether the festival has shown films from nine countries since its inception.

Alongside film screenings the festival program today also comprises „Q&As“ with attendant filmmakers and critics, talks by film historians as well as workshops and masterclasses with eminent documentarians.

Guests of the festival since 2011 have included Marina Razbezhkina, Vitaly Mansky, Volker Koepp, Naum Kleiman, Alexander Gutman, Andres Veiel, Annekatrin Hendel, Alina Rudnitskaya, Maria Hemmleb, Ulrike Haage, Anton Mazurov and Ewgeni Majsel, among others. Among the festival’s partners are Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov’s School of Documentary Film and Theater, the Russian film magazine Seans as well as film festivals Artdocfest, The Message to Man, DOK Leipzig and DOKer.

“Territorium Film” is distinguished by its unique atmosphere of cooperation and community. We hold no competition and award no prizes. The festival program is curated: This approach allows us to match works by established filmmakers with debut efforts, documentary with animated films, and first showings with documentary classics. In dispensing with the competition our aim is to create conditions conducive to intimate conversation between filmmakers of different countries. We value highly our viewers’ trust and curiosity and are pleased that “Territorium Film” has become a place for open communication between audiences and creators.