State Surveillance and Cultural Heritage – Round Four for the Lübeck Script Development Grant
Lübeck, November 5, 2026. Three filmmakers with two unusual projects. The recipients of this year’s Lübeck Script Development Grant were announced at the opening ceremonies of the 68th Nordic Film Days Lübeck. The projects selected for the fourth annual grant tackle issues of state control, personal freedom, and how we choose to depict history.
During the festive opening of the NFL on Wednesday, November 4, the recipients of the Lübeck Script Development Grant 2026/2027 were announced. Arne Körner and Rafael Stachowiak received the narrative film subsidy for their project Rosa Liste, while the visual storytelling grant goes to Johanna Domke for her hybrid documentary project Die Andere Seite der Maske. Both pieces take historical and societal issues as their subject matter, approaching it in unusual ways. Funding is provided by the Possehl Foundation.
“Both projects show how diverse and relevant cinematic storytelling can be. While Rosa Liste deals with state surveillance and grappling with identity, Die Andere Seite der Maske questions how we view history and cultural heritage. Both deal with subjects that are topical even today and find a unique way of approaching those narratives. We are pleased to accompany the filmmakers as they develop their ideas”, says Martin Rehbock, the LDS project manager.
Rosa Liste – between state surveillance and personal freedom
Hamburg, 1980. Lübeck policeman Otto Kessel takes on a new case at the city’s famed Davidwache police station in the heart of the red-light district. He is tasked with secretly monitoring homosexual men and collecting their names in a “red list”. But when he delves into the scene under an assumed identity and falls in love with a man, his life begins to go off the rails. Between his family, the police, and the chicanery of the East German state security services, Otto has to face up to his own identity issues.
With Rosa Liste, Hamburg director and screenwriter Arne Körner and actor Rafael Stachowiak grapple with a little-known chapter in German post-war history – the systematic surveillance of homosexual men by the Hamburg police. Based on true events, the filmmakers are developing a political thriller that combines spy drama and love story, and tackles self-determination, marginalisation, and state control.
Arne Körner studied with Wim Wenders at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. His films have been shown at numerous international festivals, including several times at the Nordic Film Days Lübeck. Rafael Stachowiak has been a working actor in film, television, and stage for many years, and became a member of the repertory at Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre in 2009. The two worked together on Körner’s theatrical film Gasmann (2019). Stachowiak is slated to play the lead in Rosa Liste.
Die andere Seite der Maske – a journey between Lübeck and Cameroon
Who owns a cultural artefact – and who decides what story it tells? Lübeck filmmaker Johanna Domke tackles those questions in her project Die andere Seite der Maske (Behind the Mask). It focusses on a ritual mask from Cameroon’s Western High Plateau that is held in Lübeck’s world cultures (Kulturen der Welt) collection. The object’s history begins with a former king of the Bamiléké people and ends, via a German art collector, in storage at a Lübeck museum.
Working with the director of the collection, Dr Lars Frühsorge, and artist Maxim Mballa Tagny, the project is intended to make the journey back to Cameroon. At issue is not just the provenance of the mask, but also differing concepts of ownership, cultural identity, and remembrance. Instead of delivering pat answers, Domke wants to make the perspectives visible of the people who are connected to the artefact and its history.
Die andere Seite der Maske is planned as a hybrid project combining documentary research with experimental and staged elements. Johanna Domke grew up in the Lübeck area and studied art as well as film directing and screenwriting. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is often set at the juncture between documentary film and the visual arts. She settled back in Lübeck in 2020, where she works, among other things, as a writer and director for broadcaster NDR.
About the Lübeck Script Development Grant
The Lübeck Script Development Grant has been awarded annually since 2023 to two projects. One goes to a new, feature length narrative film project, the other to a concept for an audio-visual story with an open format and platform, such as a VR experience, a 360° fulldome production, or a series. During their residency in Lübeck, the grantees develop their projects with research, discussions, and encounters in the city, and present their work in public forums.
