Relaunch: Short film portal shortfilm.de has grown wings!

We would like to devote this issue’s leading article to making an important announcement on our own behalf: the relaunch of shortfilm.de. The expansion and relaunch of the Short Film Magazine has been made possible by a collaborative agreement between the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the German Short Film Association, or AG Kurzfilm for short, as well as the support of the State Minister for Cultural and Media Affairs (BKM) and German Films (known as Export-Union of German Cinema).

We will now be offering two different sections behind the common portal: the international Short Film Magazine and the German Short Film Scene. These two wings of shortfilm.de have been given different colour schemes to make it easier to distinguish between them. A red scheme has been added to the prior green one to identify the pages with information on the German Short Film Scene. In terms of content, the red zone – available primarily in German – is devoted exclusively to German short film, allowing considerable more space for this subject in future. As before, the green zone, in both German and English, will feature reports not only from Germany but in particular on international news and topics. Both wings are linked through common headings such as Links and Forum. A joint editorial team, to which new members have been added, will ensure continuity despite these changes. And, as always, the editors will be reporting on the scene independently from the site’s sponsors, who each have their own Internet platform.

The joint sponsorship reinforces and stablizes the Short Film Magazine by efficiently bundling existing resources. At the same time, shortfilm.de is afforded a broader communications base and integrated more fully into the short film scene.

For the reader, the relaunch means first and foremost one thing: even more information, news, background reports and a greater variety of services than ever before.

Since its launch three years ago, the Short Film Magazine has made an effort to address both an international and German audience. One outward expression of this orientation is the fact that all information is provided in both German and English languages. When choosing which news and topics to focus on, we were therefore continually faced with the question of whether an item was really of interest to a wider public outside Germany. News with only national or perhaps even regional topicality often remained unpublished. This was the case for example with details on German film policy, of no import to a filmmaker on another continent, or announcements of upcoming events in Germany with merely regional relevance. On the other hand, there has always been a great deal of interest in Germany in news on the national scene, since information on the film sector here is otherwise scant or scattered amongst several different sources. We hence found it unfortunate that a short film magazine published in Germany was unable to fill this gap. Also behind our initial choice of focus were quantitative restrictions on the extent of the magazine due to limited resources and work capacities. Although shortfilm.de was financed and operated solely by the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the magazine was not among the core tasks of the festival.

Additional partners have thus been actively sought since the launch of shortfilm.de, and the founding of the German Short Film Association in May 2002 suddenly opened up new perspectives. The aims and tasks the association has set for itself include supporting and promoting German short film both at home and abroad. The association realized from the outset that the achievement of these objectives would entail creating more publicity and communication opportunities for the German short film. After the AG Kurzfilm business office had to abandon plans for a print magazine due to cost factors, the next logical step was to seek collaboration with the already existing online magazine shortfilm.de. In April 2003 the Managing Director of AG Kurzfilm, Sylke Gottlebe, in consultation with the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, draughted a joint concept for an expanded magazine based on shortfilm.de. Since then, the Short Film Magazine and the AG Kurzfilm business office, together with Michael Jahn, who was taken on board at shortfilm.de as an additional editor, have been working on the practical implementation of this plan. We are proud to now present the results of this one-year preparation period!

New at shortfilm.de: the German Short Film Scene

The German Short Film Scene zone focuses on the German short and is divided into several sections. The "Nachrichten (news)" and "Berichte (reports)" areas are addressed to a German-speaking audience. Detailed information is provided here in an effort to improve the flow of communication within the short film scene and thus provide a long overdue platform for publicizing the short form in Germany. The "School", "Filmmakers", "Short Film Catalogue" and "Service" sections, on the other hand, contain useful information for both German and international readers. This enables shortfilm.de to fulfill its commitment to representing the interests of German short film both at home and abroad, and to providing a basis for the systematic presentation of the German short film scene.

The "Nachrichten" area in the German Short Film Scene zone is devoted to providing topical information on current goings on in the world of German short film – in much more detail than was heretofore possible. In contrast with the Short Film Magazine zone, news here is updated on a weekly basis, in some cases immediately after being received. News is divided into four sub-sections: Current, Film Policy, Festival Participation and Scene. "Aktuelles" contains up-to-the-minute news from the short film scene: for example, festival news, funding decisions, film school announcements and production news. Under "Festivalteilnahmen" we list German short films that can be seen in international competitions at important festivals both in Germany and elsewhere. "Filmpolitik" looks at changes in legislation and current political debates. Selected funding decisions and short-film commendations are also announced here at regular intervals. Something that’s surely unprecedented in the short film world is the news section "Szene". Conceived as a kind of online "gossip column", readers can contribute here to industry discussions by providing short news flashes. If the idea catches on, this could become a platform in which short film professionals exchange news on the latest developments on the short film scene.

In the second section, "Berichte", a more detailed look will be taken at important events, changes in the short film landscape, interesting initiatives from the world of short film, specific genres and national short film institutions, similar to the Topic section of the Short Film Magazine. The first article, for example, is a report on the presence of German festivals and sponsors at the "Expresión en Corto" short film festival in Mexico

The further sections will be available in both German and English. Here we plan to offer an overview across the whole bandwidth of short film in Germany, as well as introducing some of the protagonists on the domestic short film scene. "Film & TV Schools " provides a clearly structured and informative presentation of German film schools and the courses they offer, as well as a look at current student work, with 5 to 15 films per school. The German film scene encompasses a variety of innovative "Filmmakers" who have deliberately chosen to go the independent route, or who, in addition to feature film projects, continue to shoot short films as well. shortfilm.de will feature a cameo of one of these filmmakers each month. And - last but not least – we also plan to present a portion of the 1,000 short films produced in Germany each year. Another selection of the most important and interesting German short films of the past few years will be presented under " Short Film Catalogue". This catalogue is designed for anyone with either a personal or professional interest in short film. In particular film buyers and festival representatives from abroad can obtain information here on the latest German productions.

In the "Service" area you will find a unparalleled pool of useful information – in both German and English. This includes information on festivals, available film funding, producers, distribution and sales companies, television stations and film associations, as well as museums and archives relevant to short film. Institutions are listed with address, contact data and a short description. For the German short film festivals, not only the names of the organizers and the competition profiles are included, but also statistical data on submissions and prize money. Although this Service section is still under construction, it is sure to soon form an indispensable reference for anyone occupied with short film.

Maintained jointly by both wings of the magazine are the international short film Links list, the Calendar with overview of submission deadlines and festival dates and the Forum. The Newsletter also has something new to offer: German-speaking subscribers will now have the option of receiving an HTML version that includes headlines for the latest news from the German Short Film Scene.

We sincerely hope that this expanson of shortfilm.de and the additional information we are now able to provide will not only be welcomed by our readers, but will also encourage them to actively take advantage of the site and participate in its growth by contributing their own input.

Reinhard W. Wolf & Michael Jahn

(Editors)

Helping to realize the relaunch:

Project Manager: Iris Pfleging (Kurzfilmtage)

Graphic Design: Dipl. Des. Marie-Susann Kuehr (Cologne)

CMS programming: pixell daten & design GmbH (Bonn)

Data Transfer: Annekatrin Reinsch (AG Kurzfilm)