
Participants of the Jazzfest Community Film Lab © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Nadin Deventer
In a multi-week artistic process, Berlin-based filmmakers and artists from various disciplines developed the community film DREAM BABY DREAM that was shot during the festival week. In addition to the film, the Jazzfest Community Film Lab created a shared space for artistic encounters and new forms of exchange – improvisational, exploratory and collaborative.

DREAM BABY DREAM, Jazzfest Community Film Lab, 2025
© Berliner Festspiele / Jazzfest Berlin, photo: Amely Sommer
The experimental short film DREAM BABY DREAM celebrated its world premiere as one of 70 selected films from 18 countries at the LIMINALDance Film Festival in Washington, D.C., on 24 April. There, it received the IN Series Counterpoint Award in recognition of its visionary interplay of music and movement and its exceptional interdisciplinary approach to dance filmmaking.
60 Berlin-based participants, including children, teenagers, adults, professional and non-professional artists from various disciplines, explore central questions of our time through music, movement and poetry in this 20-minute collaboratively created experimental film: the search for home and belonging, the tension between dream and utopia, and the traces of trauma in Berlin’s migrant communities. It features musicians from the specially commissioned transcultural ensemble Moabit Imaginarium, children from two Moabit day care centres, young performers from the post migrant TheaterX / Platform Migration Matters and the dancer Milton Camilo.
Screening dates for DREAM BABY DREAM:
24.4.: LIMINAL Dance Film Festival in Washington, D.C. (world premiere), winner of the IN Series Counterpoint Award
6.5.: TANZRAUSCHEN Festival on move / move on in Wuppertal (German premiere), film screening and workshop “Move on up – Co-creating as a model for shared power”
9.5.: Opening of Kulturmanege Moabit at Otto-Spielplatz (Berlin premiere)
9.5.: Goethe Institut Washington D.C. (EU Open House)
25.5.: Moers Festival, Film screening and panel talk “discussions! Where Has the Jazz Gone?”
20.6.: IG Jazz – Jazzwoche Berlin #8, film screening and panel talk “Improvising collective change: Jazz, Demokratie und tragfähige Strukturen”
1.7.: Vancouver International Jazz Festival
3.7.: FuoriFormato – Festival internazionale di danza contemporanea e videodanza
(Further screening dates will be updated frequently and added to the list.)
The film was developed and produced over four months in autumn 2025 by a 10-member creative team of Berlin-based artists, musicians, choreographers and international filmmakers and was shot during the Jazzfest Community Week in late October 2025 at the Gropius Bau, the former Tegel Airport, and various locations throughout the Berlin-Moabit district.
Impressions from the Film Screenings
Impressions from the Film Shoot
Creative Team