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Film und Medien Stiftung NRW➝Media Region NRW➝Contacts in NRW➝Events / Festivals NRW

Events / Festivals NRW

As a centrally located metropolitan region in the heart of Europe and leading media hub, North Rhine-Westphalia provides the ideal environment for trade fairs, conferences and festivals. Leading international events for the industry and general public make NRW a year-round location for new market trends and topical debates as well as for networking and professionalisation. NRW is therefore able to provide the appropriate locations of every shape and size, professional service-providers and, not least of all, an inspiring cultural environment and the Rhenish lifestyle.

Facts and figures

  • leading fairs, conferences and professional events with millions of visitors from all over the world
  • gamescom, dmexco, ANGA COM, Grimme Award, Film Festival Cologne
  • lit.Cologne: Europe‘s largest reading festival with more than 110,000 visitors
  • important awards ceremonies ranging from the German Television Award through the Grimme Online Award to the 1LIVE Krone

More information:

Events in NRW

Werner Köhler
CEO lit.Cologne
NRW’s cities are as diverse as the landscape. But one thing unites the people of this region: curiosity about all things new. That is all I can ask for.
Martina Richter
Director Film Festival Cologne
Since its inception 30 years ago, the Film Festival Cologne is at the medial pulse of our time. Year by year the festival provides an international perspective and crossmedia discussion of current developments in the world of audio-visual content, film and Internet to the already well-positioned media and digital location NRW.
Gerald Böse
chairman of the board Koelnmesse
Cologne's trade fairs for digital entertainment are a strong driving force for the city, important ambassadors for the media region of NRW and key innovators in live visual communication. In 2020, the digital gamescom and DMEXCO@home demonstrated new approaches to hybrid trade fair formats of the future.
Christina Essenberger
Managing Director, International Women's Film Festival Dortmund|Cologne
The media hub of NRW is way ahead of its time. The International Women's Film Festival had already been enjoying wide support here more than 35 years ago as Germany's unique and internationally acknowledged meeting place for women working in the film industry.
Dr. Frauke Gerlach
Grimme Director
What began with a prize was later augmented by training programmes and other prizes and now completed by research activities about the digital shift and more: that's the Grimme Institute. But, in essence, more than five decades have been spent here focused on the eternal and equally topical and fascinating question about the quality of media - an important contribution to the media hub of NRW.
Maxa Zoller
Head of IFFF Dortmund | Cologne
The films produced and shown in NRW reflect the dynamics of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region. Films by and with strong women encounter a professional audience at the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund | Cologne and subsequently come into the cinemas – and have being doing so now for over 30 years!