Film Screenings at Jazzfest Berlin 2026

Through music, movement and poetry, the experimental short film DREAM BABY DREAM explores questions of belonging, utopia, dreams and trauma. Produced as part of Jazzfest Berlin 2025 in collaboration with 60 Berlin-based participants, including children, teenagers and adults as well as artists from a range of disciplines, the film will be screened at various locations throughout the festival.

Director Johan Grimonprez’s Oscar®-nominated documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat recounts the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo. Drawing on archival footage and personal film recordings, the film explores the intersections of jazz, the Cold War and colonial power politics in Africa during the 1960s.

Director Anna Schmidt’s documentary Being Hipp – First Lady of European Jazz traces the remarkable life of jazz pianist Jutta Hipp, the first European artist to sign a recording contract with Blue Note Records. Through interviews with contemporaries, archival material and musical reinterpretations, the film sheds light on her rise to prominence, her withdrawal from public life and her lasting significance to jazz history.