Our DFF – Creating New Spaces

How can the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum open itself up even more to Frankfurt’s diverse communities and how must it change in order to truly become a house for everyone? And how can a jointly designed process of change succeed? These questions formed the starting point of the intercultural model project “Our DFF”, in the course of which events, workshops and a project week took place. The focus was on meeting and exchanging ideas with cooperation partners from different districts of Frankfurt. During the pandemic, we adapted the project to the changed situation and transferred to digital. Together with our partners, we developed ideas and concepts, which are to become part of the DFF mediation programme in the long term.

During the Easter holidays 2021, we ran a digital project week with seven young people from different schools. Together with the project team, which implemented the group’s ideas on site, the teenagers created an exhibition that went on show in the foyer of our museum. The central project questions revolved around what the teenagers’ expectations of the DFF are, what they are particularly interested in and what less, and how they feel we must change as an institution in order to be a more open and accessible house.

For the exhibition curated by them, the teenagers chose their favourite objects and made self-portraits. They also created a wall of photographs resulting from a photo project with a group from the Al Karama Parent-Child Centre. For this, the participating women from the Centre photographed their neighbourhood, their favourite places and things that are important to them with a disposable camera. Other project partners were Über den Tellerrand Frankfurt e.V. and MiA – Migrantinnen fit für den Arbeitsmarkt. The MiA group’s writing and photography projects are also on show in the exhibition.

Look inside the exhibition “Our DFF – An exhibition with seven young people in extraordinary times”.

For the exhibition Adele Fierhauser, Azmi Abu-Yabes, Ihab Abu-Damos, Lara Dirbas, Manal El Halfaoui, Salma Gharib and Su Can selected their favourite objects, made self-portratits and collected ideas for the design of our foyer.

In addition, the exhibition presents images and stories of other participants of the “Our DFF” project. They are in some cases very personal insights into the lives of the people of Frankfurt with international history.