Kultur für alle: Fußball und die Gesellschaft der Zukunft

In cooperation with the DFB-Stiftungen

Our major cultural program on the occasion of the IFFMH anniversary – indeed, the entire 75th edition of our festival – is taking place under the banner, “Imagine Futures!” It revolves around the question of how we can imagine the futures ahead of us given the challenges we are currently facing. More specifically: what spaces and opportunities already exist for resisting antidemocratic developments and movements, and how might these need to be expanded or protected?

This panel discussion, held in cooperation with the DFB-Stiftungen, is one of the formats that will allow us to explore such questions. Here, we want to talk about football as a catalyst for social engagement. In doing so, we are building on a public conversation that was held at the IFFMH two years ago with Josephine Henning and Serkan Zubari about culture, identity, and integration.

We consider football, like film and cinema, to be an accessible form of culture. As such, it offers opportunities for education and for strengthening democracy: not only can it provide a path to social mobility, it also brings together people from a wide range of backgrounds and walks of life, be it in clubs, at practice, on the field, or in the stands. It thus offers something that is urgently needed nowadays, namely the possibility of dialogue beyond our own small communities. You are warmly invited to join the conversation!


Participants: Horst Hamann (former football player and acclaimed photographer) and Klaus Schlappner (former football player and coach, including with SV Waldhof Mannheim and the Chinese national team) Moderation: Sascha Keilholz (Festival Director)


When and where: THU, 05.11 | 5 p.m. | Rosengarten (Johann Wenzel Stamitz Saal), Rosengartenplatz 2, 68161 Mannheim | Entry: free | Language: German