In April 2018, the 11th LICHTER Filmfest in Frankfurt brought together around 100 filmmakers, directors, producers, cinema and festival organisers, funding bodies, broadcasters, actors and critics. Driven by their belief in cinema, they developed a concept on how fundamental innovations in promotion and financing, training and film education, distribution and cinema culture can contribute to a revival of German film: the "Frankfurt Positions on the Future of German Film".

Film festivals are a good place to argue about goals and strategies for this change. On the one hand, they themselves are not or only indirectly part of the existing film policy institutions; on the other hand, they have their own interest in allowing cinematic potential to unfold in the best possible way - because they want to show artistically strong films.

This is why the discussion continued at the Munich Film Festival and the Hof Film Festival (p. 18). At the DOK.fest in Munich (p.10), a separate congress with several discussion rounds was dedicated to the special subject of cinema documentaries. Ideas, projects, papers are the result of these events. In addition, other initiatives continued to work on the ideas of the "Frankfurt Positions". The initiative "Film macht Schule" (Film in Schools) provides new impulses for film education (p. 26) and the main association Cinephilie (p. 22) is working on a renewal of film culture.

This publication documents many of the film policy contributions of the year preceding it: Edgar Reitz's initial text (p.4) - which provided the impetus for the congress in Frankfurt -, the ideas put forward at the festivals and, of course, the "Frankfurt Positions" themselves (p. 27). They are supplemented by a text by Lars-Henrik Gass and Sascha Alleyne, who were also guests at the Frankfurt congress, on the fundamental legal problems of the existing funding system in Germany (p. 12). The Initiative Pro Quote Film (p. 24) adds the important aspect of diversity and gender parity to the demands of the "Frankfurt Positions".

The publication "Abschied Von Gestern. Positionen zur Zukunft des deutschen Films" was published at the beginning of 2019, has long been out of print and already enjoys genuine cult status.