Kinofest brings nine German films to GSC Mid Valley from 22 October, including the Golden Bear winner

The film that won this year's top prize at the Berlin film festival is coming to a Kuala Lumpur mall for RM15. Yellow Letters, İlker Çatak's political drama, is one of nine German films in the Kino Film Festival at GSC Mid Valley from Thursday 22 to Sunday 25 October, the New Straits Times reported on 16 October.

Nine films, one hall, four days

NST describes eight features and one documentary, organised by the Goethe-Institut Malaysia with GSC International Screens and the Malaysian German Society. Tickets are RM15. After Kuala Lumpur, the festival moves to the Malaysian-German Society in Penang from 20 to 22 November. GSC's own festival page lists the programme as Amrum, The Secret Floor, Halo Betty, Rose, Berlin Hero, Wilma, The Family Approach, Circusboy and Yellow Letters, each in German with English listed alongside; GSC's international screens page gives the festival's dates as 21 to 25 October, a day earlier than NST, so check the day you want before travelling.

The two to start with

Yellow Letters won the Golden Bear for best film in February, Screen Daily reported. It follows a left-leaning Turkish couple in Ankara who come under pressure once they attract the state's attention. Jury president Wim Wenders said the film speaks up very clearly about "the political language of totalitarianism". It runs 128 minutes, the longest in the programme.

Amrum is Fatih Akin's coming-of-age drama set in 1945, drawn from director Hark Bohm's memories of a wartime childhood on the North Sea island. NST sums it up as a 12-year-old boy helping his family through the harsh last year of the war. Screen's critic Lee Marshall, reviewing its Cannes premiere, called it a "delicate, rather heartbreaking coming-of-age story"; Diane Kruger is in the cast. It runs 93 minutes.

For families, and for adults only

NST picks out The Secret Floor, about 12-year-old Karli, whose family moves into an old hotel where the lift takes him back to 1938, and Circusboy, an award-winning documentary about a circus child on the road with his great-grandfather. Rose, which NST says deals with gender bias long before women's rights, is classified 18; Halo Betty and Wilma also take on gender norms. The chains' listings classify Circusboy P12, Amrum and Yellow Letters 13, and Wilma 16.

Before you book

Seats in a single-hall festival go quickly at RM15. The Yellow Letters page and the Amrum page will show their GSC Mid Valley sessions as soon as GSC publishes them, and the showtimes page for GSC Mid Valley shows the whole programme day by day.