Without further ado, Badewitz, who was born in Hof and knew the local cinema operators quite well, and Brandner decided to stage their films in the small town in Upper Franconia.

The festival rapidly developed into the main annual meeting point for the "Jungfilmer", the makers of the New German Cinema.

Many upcoming directors present their debut films in Hof and maintain friendly connections with the festival for years.

Apart from that, director George A. Romero presents the world premiere of his horror movie Zombie – Dawn of the Dead at the filmfestival in Northern Bavaria.

He initiated the format of HoF PLUS that accompanies the festival with panel discussions about current issues of the film business.

He also fathered the HoF RENDEZVOUS, a format that features presentations of films from the previous festival throughout the following year.

The pandemic situation made it necessary to plan a hybrid festival, so that all films were also available online through the HoF-On-Demand streaming platform, restricted to Germany.

The festival covers the almost full spectrum of non-mainstream movies, the main focus being on films of German origin.

Hof is when the festival director is moderating a discussion panel in his Snoopy jumper and the premiere audience are partying at the bratwurst stand.

In the first place, however, Hof is famous for having provided a showcase for non-mainstream German movies for more than 50 years, strictly as part of the main program and not as we know it from the Munich or the Berlinale festival as separate formats.