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Jazzfest Berlin

Key Visual Jazzfest Berlin 2026

Concerts, Community & Outreach, Workshops, Jam-Sessions, Discourse

The programme will be published in September.

Film | World Premiere

DREAM BABY DREAM

Jazzfest Community Film Lab

Trailer | DREAM BABY DREAM © Berliner Festspiele / Jazzfest Berlin
video: Mariana Hoyos, music: Oùat

The experimental short film DREAM BABY DREAM, realised as part of Jazzfest Berlin 2025, celebrated its world premiere as one of 70 selected films from 18 countries at the LIMINALDance Film Festival in Washington, D.C., on 24 April. The German premiere will follow on 6 May at the TANZRAUSCHENFestival on move / move on in Wuppertal. Further screenings will take place on 9 May at Kulturmanege Moabit on the Otto playground, on 25 May at the Moers Festival, and on 1 July at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

60 Berlin-based participants, including children, teenagers, adults, professional and non-professional artists from various disciplines, engage with central questions of our present through music, movement and poetry in this 20-minute collaboratively created experimental film.

The film was developed and produced over four months in autumn 2025 by a 10-member creative team and was shot during the Jazzfest Community Week in late October 2025 at the Gropius Bau, the former Tegel Airport, and various locations throughout the Berlin-Moabit district.

DREAM BABY DREAM received the IN Series' COUNTERPOINT AWARD at the Liminal Dance Film Festival during its world premiere in Washington, D.C.! The IN Series' COUNTERPOINT AWARD is in recognition of a visionary collaboration between music and movement, and an exceptional interdisciplinary approach to dance filmmaking.

More information and screening dates

Jazzfest Berlin 2025

Impressions

  • The trio on stage

    Tim Berne’s CAPATOSTA

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Wadada Leo Smith signs autographs at a standing table surrounded by several people.

    Wadada Leo Smith

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • People in the foyer, words on the wall say: Where will you run when the world´s on fire?

    Haus der Berliner Festspiele

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Close-up portrait of Jawwaad Taylor playing the trumpet

    The Young Mothers

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Haus der Berliner Festspiele at night. Numerous people can be seen through the windows.

    Haus der Berliner Festspiele

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Jazzfest Community Week Film Lab

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Amely Sommer

  • Close up of a score with the title "Oddly Enough"

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • The quartett playing at A-Trane

    Lina Allemano Four

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Amirtha Kidambi smiles into a mikrophone

    Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Angelica Sanchez speaks into a mike. Beside her sit Peter Margasak, Marilyn Crispell and Nadin Deventer

    Artist Talk with Peter Margasak, Angelica Sanchez, Marilyn Crispell and Nadin Deventer

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Three young female musicians on stage

    Signe Emmeluth: “BANSHEE”

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Haus der Berliner Festspiele

    Berliner Festspiele, Foto: Camille Blake

  • MC Dälek raps behind a mixing desk

    MOPCUT feat. MC Dälek

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • David Murray and Chris Beck playing music together

    David Murray Quartet

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Gropius Bau

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Amely Sommer

  • Marc Ribot plays the guitar

    Marc Ribot

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Group photo at Gropius Bau with participating kids and adults

    Jazzfest Community Film Lab

    © Amely Sommer

  • Two young musicians: one sings with her eyes closed, the other picks at the violin

    hilde

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • A group of brass players dynamically lean forward in sync while playing.

    London Jazz Composers Orchestra

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • View from the audience onto the stage, where James Brandon is playing the saxophone

    James Brandon Lewis Quartet

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Sakina Abdou stands in the middle of the audience in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

    Sakina Abdou

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Simon Sieger, Nadin Deventer and Joel Grip stand in front of a small audience. They laugh heartily.

    Kick-off: Jazzfest Community Week

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • View from a distance to a stage that is empty apart from Pat Thomas playing the grand piano

    Pat Thomas

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Black-and-white photograph: A man is being filmed. The contours are blurred, creating an artistic tension.

    Jazzfest Community Film Lab

    © Amely Sommer

  • In a bright room, a trio plays for an audience consisting of people of different ages.

    Lunch-Konzert at SOS-Kinderdorf Moabit

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Fire! Orchestra playing dynamically

    Fire! Orchestra

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Camille Blake

  • Marta Sánchez playing the grand piano in a leather jacket

    Marta Sánchez Trio

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

About Jazzfest Berlin

Presenting both style-defining icons of jazz and young positions from a wide variety of styles, Jazzfest Berlin presents a festival programme full of creative border-crossings and collective visions.

Read more

In the Media Library

Artist Talk with Wadada Leo Smith

With contributions by Paola Malavassi and Vijay Iyer

As part of his final European tour, legendary trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith was appearing at Jazzfest Berlin 2025. Along with music journalist Peter Margasak and Nadin Deventer, artistic director of Jazzfest Berlin, he looked back on more than half a century of “Creative Music”, talked about his experiences past and present as an American musician in Europe, and reflected on the importance of self-organised musicians’ associations like the AACM for the future.

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Black-and-white portrait of a man touching his eye with his right hand.

Gropius Bau |

Exhibition

Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes: Persistence of Vision

19 March to 28 June 2026

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A person perceived as female, wearing a black headscarf, is standing outdoors and is massaging her naked breasts.

Gropius Bau |

Exhibition

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

15 April to 23 August 2026

One of the most influential performance artists of all time, Marina Abramović presents Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition at Gropius Bau in spring 2026. The show traces her ongoing engagement with ritual, eroticism, death and the body as a site of political resistance. Drawing on the folklore of Abramović’s native Balkans, the exhibition weaves together filmic and sculptural installations with live performance.