SEE THE SOUND 2026
A Beautiful Place - Lebanon Hanover
A journey alongside darkwave icons Lebanon Hanover, following William Maybelline and Larissa Iceglass across their 2024 European tour—from Bristol and London to Paris and Berlin. More than a concert film, it captures the bond between the duo and their devoted fans, weaving performances with behind-the-scenes moments into a portrait of a band that has become a cult force for a generation.
DetailAward Ceremony + Concert
The SoundTrack_Cologne awards ceremony is once again open to the public this year. Five prizes will be awarded during the event, including the Career Achievement Award to to composer Christopher Young, one of the most prolific and versatile voices in contemporary film music.
DetailBook Presentation: This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich
For over seven decades, generations of artists have forged unsettling connections with the aesthetics, mass hysteria, and ideology of Nazism. Whether born of shock, recklessness, or outright provocation, rock 'n' roll has harboured these associations more than any other art form. This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll, the new book from bestselling author, journalist, and former musician Daniel Rachel, explores why and how some of rock's most prominent figures flirted with Nazi imagery. Daniel Rachel will present the book in conversation with Pauline Black — singer of The Selecter, actress, and author.
DetailBowie: The Final Act
The documentary explores David Bowie's artistic evolution during his final decade a period marked by extraordinary productivity and a profound exploration of life, art, and transience.
DetailBoy George & Culture Club
With humor, heart, and plenty of glitz and glam, this documentary dives into the chaos, charisma, and enduring bond of one of the most iconic bands of the 1980s. Director Alison Ellwood combines interviews with all four members with TV footage from the era—a love story of fondness, drama, and heartbreak behind a worldwide Number 1 hit.
DetailBroken English
Over six decades, thirty-five albums, and a life shaped by fame, addiction, and relentless reinvention, Marianne Faithfull tells her own story, unfiltered. Made with her full involvement, the film unfolds within an imagined institution where memory and mythology collide. Her final declaration, and a defiant swan song.
DetailCerrone Supernature
Nearly fifty years in the music industry, over thirty million albums sold, and a new generation of rappers and electronic producers sampling his tracks, Cerrone revolutionised disco music and left his mark on the French Touch movement. This biopic traces the wild decades-long journey of a man whose mantra, "Right Time, Right Place," still rings true today.
DetailDaytime Revolution
In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took over America's most-watched daytime TV show, reaching 40 million viewers a week. For five daring episodes, they turned the Mike Douglas Show into a platform for revolution—featuring Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Ralph Nader, and George Carlin, alongside Lennon's duet with Chuck Berry and a live performance of Imagine.
DetailDiane Warren: Relentless
Four decades, 15 Oscar nominations, and an Honorary Oscar, Diane Warren is one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, behind iconic songs such as "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" (Armagedon), "Because You Loved Me" (Up Close and Personal), and "How Do I Live" (Con Air) featured in over 150 films. Director Bess Kargman traces her journey, with first-hand commentary from Cher, Lady Gaga, Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Hudson, and many more.
DetailDi'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer
A pair of fans launch a crowdfunding campaign to rescue Paul Di’Anno, Maiden’s lost singer, wheelchair-bound, neglected. He escapes to Croatia during the pandemic, battles poverty, reunites with old bandmates, finds love, and stages a heroic return. Metallica, Kiss, Slayer, and Megadeth testify to his legacy.
DetailDJ Ahmet
A 15-year-old Yuruk boy from a remote Macedonian village escapes into music amidst family pressure and forbidden love for a promised girl. With his silent brother and a German girl named Aya, he starts secret raves on a field. To stop her wedding, they fight tradition, one beat at a time.
DetailEmerging from the Shadows - Rediscovering the Legacies of Weinberg and Korngold
Born in Warsaw and Vienna, bound by their Jewish heritage, composers Mieczysław Weinberg and Erich Wolfgang Korngold were both forced to flee the Holocaust, Weinberg finding refuge in the USSR, Korngold reinventing himself as a Hollywood film composer. Director Veronika Emily Pohl traces their contrasting lives and neglected legacies, through the efforts of conductor Constantine Orbelian and cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper to bring their music the recognition it deserves.
DetailEnsemble Modern - Why We Play
The first feature-length documentary dedicated to one of the world's leading contemporary music ensembles. Going beyond the concert stage, the film immerses us in the charged space of rehearsals, where sound is still alive, fragile, and taking shape. With works by Rebecca Saunders, Heiner Goebbels, and Mark Andre, alongside a younger generation of composers, it presents music not as something fixed, but as a restless, collective search for the sound of our time.
DetailEuropean Talent Competition
As part of the European Talent Competition, the WDR FILMSCORE AWARD and the EUROPEAN TALENT AWARD SOUND DESIGN are presented. For this competition, young composers and sound designers were invited to create the music and sound design for the short film "FAKE NEWS" (Dir: David Seul). The finalist teams are presented to the jury and the audience.
DetailEverybody Digs Bill Evans
June 1961: pianist Bill Evans records two landmark jazz albums in a single day at New York's Village Vanguard. Days later, his musical soulmate and bassist Scott LaFaro dies in a car crash. Devastated, Evans stops playing entirely. This is the story of what happened next, a portrait of grief, addiction, and the long road back to the piano.
DetailGame Music Composer Concert with Zanshin
An immersive solo performance from the Austrian artist behind Ogris Debris and Depart. Expect sound sculpting, electronic textures, and a journey that moves freely between meditative introspection and ecstatic dancefloor energy.
DetailIhre Kinder - Pioneers of German Pop
In the early 1970s, Ihre Kinder forged a sound unlike anything in German music, bridging the gap between Schlager and English-language rock with progressive, folk-inflected songs addressing social injustice, environmental destruction, and cultural change. This documentary traces the band's legacy through archival material and voices from music and culture, revealing their foundational role in the history of German-language rock.
DetailKitKatClub - Kinks of Berlin
Inside one of the world's most iconic clubs, this documentary follows very different people through their Berlin nights: a drag artist chasing his breakthrough, friends discovering new sexualities, a BDSM couple, a dog-play duo, a man fighting addiction, and club founder Simon—a relic of the club's founding generation. Unfiltered and poetic, a film about freedom, identity, and unlearning shame.
DetailL’odyssée musicale de Kate Bush
In 1978, a teenage Kate Bush topped the charts with Wuthering Heights—its unconventional lyrics, eclectic style, and avant-garde performances making an immediate impact. After years as an almost mythical, elusive figure, a second wave came in 2022 when Running Up That Hill appeared in Stranger Things, becoming the most-streamed song globally on Spotify and the most Shazam-ed song in history.
DetailLeave One Day
Cécile is about to open her own gourmet restaurant, finally making her dream come true, when suddenly her father has a heart attack and she is called back to the village where she was born. Far from the hubbub of Paris life, she runs into her teenage crush. The memories come flooding back, destabilizing her certainties.
DetailLittle Trouble Girls
During a rehearsal weekend with the school choir at a monastery, Lucia feels as though everything is changing. The usually introverted teenager begins to see her world through a whole new lens. Unexpected desires and questioned values throw her off balance and jeopardize her friendships as well as the cohesion of the entire choir.
DetailLove on Trial
Mai, a rising young pop idol, commits the unthinkable: she falls in love, despite a strict prohibition in her contract. When her relationship is exposed, Mai is taken to court by her own agency. Faced with a relentless machine, the two lovers decide to fight to defend their most universal right: the right to love.
DetailMusic is a frame - Manos Tsangaris
As a student, drummer Manos Tsangaris chose a new kind of activism: he became a composer. His stages are forests, cafés, retirement homes, underground stations, and opera houses. When he told filmmaker Barbara Lubich in 2015 that no film could be made about his work, and then asked her to try, she accepted. A film about the power of listening, and how the world shifts when we truly hear it. The film's protagonist, Manos Tsangaris, and director Barbara Lubich will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
DetailPauline Black: A 2 Tone Story
A portrait of Pauline Black, lead vocalist of The Selecter and pioneer of the 2 Tone movement, whose fusion of punk and ska carried an unambiguous anti-racist message through the turbulent late 1970s. Jane Mingay's documentary explores the paradox at its heart: how a Black artist attracted a following that partly drew from skinhead and neo-Nazi subcultures, and how Pauline Black continues to carry that message today. After the screening, a Q&A with protagonist Pauline Black will follow.
DetailPeer Raben Music Award screening
Nine composers have been nominated for the PEER RABEN MUSIC AWARD. The selected films are festival highlights of the international short film scene, recognized for their innovative and dramaturgically coherent use of music and sound in relation to the narrative.
DetailSEE THE SOUND 2026 Cinema Pass
The full pass: Attend all films of the SEE THE SOUND 2026 programme with the Cinema Pass and save.
DetailSilent Film Concert
French cellist and composer Cécile Lacharme will perform at the COMEDIA Theater in Cologne on 16 July 2026, presenting her original composition for the restored German silent film HANSEATEN. Created in collaboration with the Deutsche Kinemathek, the performance will be recorded live and synchronised with the restored film, bringing a century-old work back to life through a contemporary musical voice.
DetailSound of Air
Two artists, one working with image and one with sound, meet in a shared process of experimentation and spontaneity. Crossing into each other's practices, they find a space where sound and image challenge, disrupt, and transform one another, until a new expression gradually emerges from the tension between the visible and the audible.
DetailSun Ra: Do The Impossible
Poet, philosopher, Egyptologist, bandleader—jazz visionary Sun Ra defied all classification. With his Sun Ra Arkestra, he stretched the boundaries of free jazz, weaving Afrofuturist thinking and interstellar metaphors into a cosmic mission. Director Christine Turner assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait through archival footage, Arkestra testimonies, and scholar insights.
DetailTalk with Chris Young
Composer Christopher Young, named the "Greatest Horror Film Composer of All Time" by BBC Music Magazine and celebrated across more than 160 feature films spanning horror, drama, and large-scale action, will be honoured with the Career Achievement Award at SoundTrack_Cologne 23. On Thursday, 16 July, he will take part in an in-depth onstage conversation about his acclaimed career, followed by a special award ceremony on Friday, 17 July, featuring the Neues Rheinisches Kammerorchester performing a selection of his most iconic scores.
DetailThe Magic City: Birmingham according to Sun Ra
On May 22, 1914, Herman Blount arrives on Earth in Birmingham, the "Magic City", a segregated Southern factory town. At the age of 32, he leaves to become Sun Ra. This film returns to the city-universe that birthed his cosmic philosophy: political and magical, disturbing and fascinating. A portrait in two directions.
DetailThe Musician and the Whale
After discovering that his music attracts cetaceans, composer Rone embarks on an extraordinary journey to meet a humpback whale and create music for it. In the middle of the ocean, the two engage in a unique, touching exchange, does the whale sing back?
DetailThe Radio Club
In early 1980s Los Angeles, one club became the unlikely birthplace of the West Coast Hip-Hop scene, where Hip-Hop, electro, nightlife, and urban politics collided. Through key voices from that era, including Ice-T, this documentary restores a crucial yet overlooked moment to its rightful place in the broader history of Hip-Hop.
DetailTrambólika
In times of profound change, multidisciplinary artist Chelo transforms from her conservative hometown in Cuenca to the vibrants Madrid and Berlin. As Ch3lo, Bootychelly, and Akimbo, she organizes the first LGBTQ+ Pride, paints the first themed mural, and performs a bold DJ set in front of those who watched her grow up.
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