INVASION was born in 2014 as the first festival in Germany focused exclusively on contemporary Argentine cinema — and has since established itself as Berlin's Argentine film festival.
In the first year we "invaded" the legendary Kino Babylon in central Berlin, programming ten films across a month, paired with other Argentine cultural events: concerts, performances, art shows, readings and even food tastings took place — marking 20 years of twinning between Buenos Aires and Berlin.
In the years that followed we grew into a reference for the best of Argentine cinema, programming innovative films in their original language which, despite the prestige they earn at international festivals, rarely reach German screens.
In recent years we have widened the horizon, giving audiences in other German cities access to our programme: the Munich Film Museum, the Kinemathek Karlsruhe, the Caligari cinema in Wiesbaden and the Orfeos Erben in Frankfurt. As part of the exchange we also brought German cinema to Buenos Aires: in 2016 we organised Angela Schanelec's first retrospective at the Sala Lugones, and in 2019 we presented "3 Cineastas Berlineses: Heise, Schanelec, Hartmann" at the same venue — with the Mar del Plata festival, the Goethe-Institut, the Fundación Cinemateca Argentina and the Sala Lugones.
After 13 years we look back and count 78 features and 18 shorts in total, directed among others by Hugo Santiago, Luis Ortega, Santiago Mitre, María Alché, Benjamín Naishtat, Néstor Frenkel, Sofía Mora, José Celestino Campusano, Teddy Williams, Agustina Comedi, Constanza Novick, Martín Shanly, Manuel Abramovich, Matías Piñeiro, Melisa Liebenthal, Gastón Solnicki, Romina Paula, Santiago Loza, Nele Wohlatz, Lisandro Alonso, Martín Farina, Ana Katz, Ezequiel Radusky and Clarisa Navas. We celebrate them all — and hope the list keeps growing.
