2nd Taxifilmfest 2025 – Prizes and thanks

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are delighted to report on the final event of the 2nd Taxifilmfest and to introduce our award winners.

We kept everyone waiting for a long time because we are a tiny team of just one female and two male taxi enthusiasts, and after over two weeks of the festival in ice and snow and in many locations around Berlin, we were at the end of our tether. Our families, friends, professional and business partners allowed us to work exclusively for the festival for over two weeks. They waited patiently until the Taxifilmfest was over. We thank them and have dedicated the first days after the Taxifilmfest to them.

We would also like to thank our supporters: Autohaus Dinnebier GmbH Filiale Berlin-Lichtenberg, Berliner Arbeitslosenzentrum (BALZ), Senatsverwaltung für Arbeit, Soziales,Gleichstellung, Integration, Vielfalt und Antidiskriminierung, Space Cab – Luisenstadt Taxi GmbH, Taxi Berlin (TAXI ONE GmbH), Taxi Deutschland e.V. and UZE ADS Europe GmbH

We would like to express our special thanks to the filmmakers whose works made the 2nd Taxifilmfest 2025 possible. We received over 1600 films, of which more than 60 were included in the programme. We couldn’t show them all in 10 days, so we’ll be organising further film evenings as Taxi Film Festival extended to present the full range of global taxi culture in Berlin. We must emphasise that we are organising the Taxi Film Festival as part of a campaign to defend taxi culture and good taxis.

The awards

We award prizes to three films in the categories of German feature film, documentary film and international feature film.

The Taxi Film Festival taxi for a German feature film goes to

It’s about Luis

by Lucia Chiarla

https://www.taxifilmfest.de/article170.html

Lucia Chiarla has managed to make the living and working conditions of a taxi driver in Germany today tangible for everyone, to show many details and contradictions of the profession, and to tell the story of a family in a humanly touching way. It is a film for parents, for anyone who wants to build a life for themselves today and for anyone who is looking for orientation in the face of all-powerful institutions. Taxi drivers, both male and female, are usually among the invisible people who make coming together in cities possible in the first place. It is to Lucia Chiarla’s great credit that she has made us visible as working, living people.

The Taxifilmfest taxi for Documentary Film goes to

Wat Neuet im Westen

by Daya Lavine Sieber and Anna Herrmann

https://www.taxifilmfest.de/article138.html

Daya Lavine Sieber and Anna Herrmann have managed to bring a piece of life and contemporary history back to life with film footage of a West Berlin taxi driver. The team of the Taxi Film Festival was very familiar with the surroundings of the Berlin pub ‘Ruine’ and recognised themselves in the stories from ‘Wat Neuet im Westen’. The documentary film deserves an award for its authenticity and the skilful way it weaves together its many stories. By ‘digging up’ the Ruine bar, Daya Lavine Sieber and Anna Herrmann have proven themselves to be urban archaeologists and gifted demiurges.

The Taxifilmfest Taxi for a foreign feature film goes to:

Lonely City

by Zhidan G奥

https://www.taxifilmfest.de/article113.html

Zhidan G奥 also shows the world from the perspective of a taxi driver, or more precisely, an independent car driver. The images in his film are like paintings, his camera pans use the ‘taxi’ driving around corners, and the human destinies he shows reveal a whole world. If you want to learn more about China than the film ‘Lonely City’ shows, you have to travel to Chongqing yourself and get to know residents and people passing through. The taxi driver’s fate in ‘Lonely City’ is not just the backdrop for three encounters with passengers. Like their lives, his story stands for the human experience of China’s modernisation over the last forty years. Zhidan G奥 asks whether we are now in an epoch like that of the poets Dufu and Li Bai, who in their old age wandered along the banks of the Yangtze River, far from the palaces of the Tang Dynasty. We are pleased that a taxi driver has been accepted into their community ;-)

Honourable Mention

From the large number of wonderful and interesting films, we would like to explicitly mention a few. They moved us very much and gave us many ideas.

Half Soul (Tunisia)
Wild Horses (China)
Not buried yet (Syria)
Salted Black Tea (India)
Taxi in Time (Italy
Taximan (Germany)

We will send all prizes ASAP.

We will be in touch with the participants in the near future to inform them about the opportunities for presenting their work that we will be creating in Berlin and throughout Germany. We look forward to the 3rd Taxi Film Festival in 2026.

The Taxifilmfest team

Stephan Berndt, Irene Jaxteheimer, Klaus Meier

contact

2nd Taxi Film Festival
13-22 February 2025
c/o BALZ
Beusselstraße 35
10553 Berlin
https://www.taxifilmfest.de/
Email: info@taxifilmfest.de
Phone: +49 176 58 87 37 70
Mastodon: https://berlin.social/@taxi