2013

News

Streaming Museum brings Björk’s Mutual Core to digital big screens worldwide

After Björk’s new music video was launched on New York’s Times Square, the Streaming Museum organization sent it off on a world tour. The video by Andrew Thomas Huang will be screened on big screens in public squares in Bucharest, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Sí£o Paulo, Split and elsewhere.

The tour is part of Nordic Outbreak, an international campaign featuring works by 30 artists from the Nordic countries. The launch in New York was part of “Midnight Moment”, a digital gallery project organized by the Times Square Advertising Coalition in cooperation with Times Square Arts. Every night, in a countdown at three minutes to midnight, artistic videos are splashed across several advertising surfaces.

Among the works being presented internationally by Nordic Outbreak are short films by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, J Tobias Anderson, Jette Ellgaard, Sigurdur Gudjónsson, Hannu Karjalainen and Eva Olsson.

“Mutual Core”, which opened the Nordic Outbreak tour, is part of Icelandic singer Björk’s Biophilia series, which deals with music and technological innovation in relation to science and nature. The music video was produced by MOCATV, an initiative of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

URL: http://nordicoutbreak.streamingmuseum.org/

One Dollar – an international eyewitness project in Cambodia || 21/10/2013

The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh is calling for entries for its Web documentary project “One Dollar”. Emerging filmmakers in particular are encouraged to submit portraits five to seven minutes in length of people in their local environments who are living at poverty level. The objective is to draw attention to those who are subsisting at the bottom of the income pyramid – people who hardly ever appear in the mainstream media.

The results will be published online in the form of an interactive global map. In a subsequent phase, experts, for example economists, sociologists and politicians, will be invited to respond to the entries.

Initiator of the project is the Cambodian documentary filmmaker Rithy Panh.

URL: http://www.onedollar.bophana.org
See also article “Eyewitness films on Internet platforms” on Shortfilm.de: http://www.shortfilm.de/das-kurzfilmmagazin/archiv/themen/zeitzeugenfilme-auf-internetplattformen-eine-einfuehrung-und-vier-beispiele-fuer-die-konvergenz-der-medien.html

Useful festival directory: no entry fee festivals || 21/10/2013

The festival guide “no entry fee festivals” sees itself as a resource for the makers of animated and digital films as well as media artists. Current film festivals that do not charge an application fee are listed in calendar form, including submission information.

The directory is maintained as a blog by Tracy Miller-Robbins. A filmmaker herself, Miller-Robbins is also an associate professor at the Columbus College of Art & Design (Ohio, USA). She originally started the list for her students.

URL: http://noentryfeefestivals.com/

B3 Ultrashort – the first Vine/ Instagram competition || 21/10/2013

The B3 Moving Image Biennial (Frankfurt, 30 October – 3 November 2013) has announced two competitions for ultrashort films made with the video apps Vine or Instagram. Anyone can take part in the first competition by submitting a film via a Twitter or Instagram account on the B3 theme “Expanded Narration. Das neue Erzählen”.
The second competition aims to engage visitors to the biennial, who can submit their impressions of the festival.

The organizer of the B3 Moving Image Biennial is the Offenbach University of Art and Design (HfG). The biennial is supported by the State of Hesse, together with the Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts, LPR Hessen and the City of Frankfurt/Main.

Info: http://www.b3biennale.com/de/ultrashort/b3-ultrashort

Streaming Museum mounts travelling exhibition Nordic Outbreak || 21/10/2013

This autumn and winter, the Streaming Museum will present the travelling exhibition Nordic Outbreak in six Nordic cities. The show presents 30 moving-image works by Nordic artists using big-screen projections in public spaces. After its launch on Times Square in New York City on 1 March (see our News item), the exhibition will now continue on to Helsinki, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Stavanger and Nuuk, and will finally be presented at the opening event of the European Capital of Culture year in Umeí¥, Sweden.

Dates and info: http://nordicoutbreak.streamingmuseum.org/timeline/

New distribution catalogue of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen published || 21/10/2013

The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen presents 47 short films from the programme of 2013’s festival in its newly published distribution catalogue. For the first time, all of the titles are also available in DCP format. They include 12 prize-winners and numerous other outstanding films from the competition sections of the 59th Festival. In total, the catalogue offers 516 film minutes from 18 countries, from Europe through South Africa to Canada.

The new films are supplemented by works from the festival’s archive which today covers over 1,900 titles from around 60 years of short film history. In light of its music video award’s recent anniversary, Oberhausen has compiled a trawl through German music video history of the past 15 years with “15 Years of MuVi Award”. The programme “Dance!” offers international dance performances from 1997 to 2011.

All of the titles can be booked individually or in seven feature-length compilations: International Competition 2013, German Competition 2013, MuVi Award 2013, Artist Film & Video 2013, as well as Dance!, 15 Years of MuVi Award, and NRW Competition.

All of the distribution titles are available in the DCP, BluRay and DVD formats. In addition, they are available as previews or complete films in Oberhausen’s videotheque: www.kurzfilmtage.de/en/videotheque

January 2014 will see the launch of “Oberhausen on Tour 2014”, the eighth edition of the international short film tour with distribution titles from the current catalogue. “Oberhausen on Tour 2013” was staged at more than 50 screening venues in 19 countries. In total, Oberhausen registered around 120 distribution transactions, mainly short film programmes, for about 700 individual titles in the 2012/2013 season.

Information and bookings:
Petra Okolowitz, Tel. +49 (0)208 825-2652, info@kurzfilmtage.de

FEINKŠ T – Czech and German short films on tour together || 21/10/2013

For the fourth time, the Czech Film Center and AG Kurzfilm have invited Czech and German filmmakers to present their latest works during the Czech-German Cultural Festival in Dresden and Prague. In 2013 the bilateral exchange will include a small tour: at three events in Germany, seven in the Czech Republic and one in Slovakia, films from both countries will be shown under the programmatic title “Feinkošt”. The events will take place in October in Germany and in November in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Feinkošt – The Czech-German Short Film Night is sponsored by the German-Czech Fund for the Future and by German Films. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia the events will be conducted in collaboration with the short film organization iShorts.

URL: www.filmcenter.cz/feinkost

Cris du Monde in La Ciotat – new short film festival celebrates the sequence shot || 23/07/2013

The town of La Ciotat in the south of France, at whose train station the Lumière brothers filmed their famous sequence of an arriving train in 1896, will play host this November to “Cris du Monde”, a new short film festival that ventures a unique approach.

Eligible to participate are short films between five and twelve minutes in length that include only one sequence shot and two further shots of less than 30 seconds each. In terms of content, the movies should pursue the motto “cris du monde”: cries of anger, hope, or joy.

The festival is the brainchild of filmmaker Jacques Willemont and critic Jean-Michel Frodon, who came up with the idea while collaborating on a film project on the subject of sequence shots. As La Ciotat is part of the Marseille/Provence region, which is one of the 2013 European Capitals of Culture (“MP2013″), it was no trouble to find financing for the festival.

Submission deadline is 31 July. The festival will take place from 20 to 23 November.

More info: http://www.crisdumonde.com/en/

The OK international video festival in Jakarta looks at the topic of “deception” || 23/07/2013

The biennial OK.video festival, which has been organized since 2003 by the Ruangrupa artists’ initiative, is dedicated this year to the topic of “deception”, or, more precisely, “muslihat”, a word in the native language that can also mean tricks or tactics. The meaning in this specific context is tricks and hoaxes that consumers think up to transcend the limitations of hardware (products) and software (ideas) for video and motion picture technologies.

Muslihat OK.video, which takes place from 4 to 15 September at the National Gallery of Jakarta, promises to unfold as a genuine technological “circus”.

URL: http://okvideofestival.org/2013/

Alternativa Barcelona: Call for presentation of film projects || 23/07/2013

The 20th Barcelona Independent Film Festival l’Alternativa is joining forces with Media Antena Catalunya to hold a meeting of international audiovisual professionals. The aim of the event is to support film projects that are in the preparation phase, by means of individual and group consultation sessions and the mediation of business contacts.
To be eligible, projects can be in pre-production, production, or post-production stages. The application period is from 10 July to 1 September. For eligibility requirements and further information, contact Patricia Sanchez, L’Alternativa Professionals (IFN).

URL: http://alternativa.cccb.org/2013/en/profesionales/convocatoria-proyectos-ifn-full/

YouTube opens film studio in LA || 23/07/2013

Following those in London (2012) and Tokyo (February 2013), Google/YouTube will open another “creators’ space” in mid-July, this time in Los Angeles. It will be a fully equipped film studio that can be used free of charge. However, there are some conditions: the applicants must maintain a channel in the YouTube partner programme and meet certain minimum requirements. These include at least 10,000 subscribers, at least 100,000 views per month, a concrete project idea, and three previous cooperative projects with other YouTube channels. The transfer of the rights to the finished works is not one of the conditions for use, but following the guidelines for YouTube channels is.

Once a project is approved, the applicants can make use of the studio facilities free of charge, including equipment (camera, lights, recording equipment), a post-production suite and workshops. The new YouTube Space in LA covers nearly 4,000 square metres in a former helicopter hangar originally owned by Howard Hughes.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/yt/space/

Discoveries in the vlogosphere – short film online || 23/07/2013

_”Digital Snow”, Michael Snow, Canada 2002; Fondation Daniel Langlois, Canada 2012
Transposition of the original DVD-ROM to play on the Internet: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/digital-snow/
Accompanying text by Elizabeth Legge: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=2246

_”Studies at the Beach”, Connie Coleman & Alan Powell, Experimental Television Center Owego, 1991, 8:25
Recording of an experimental video painting of a Nantucket beach using the delay buffers in an early video synthesizer by Dave Jones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCQyLKQJl94&NR=1
See also: “Experimental Television Center closes”: “http://www.shortfilm.de/en/short-film-magazine/archive/reports/experimental-television-center-closes.html

_Ubu archive: “Mona Lisa”, Toshio Matsumoto, Japan 1973, 2:59. The first Japanese film to be produced with a Scanimate computer: http://www.ubu.com/film/matsumoto_mona.html

_”Björk: Mutual Core”, Andrew Thomas Huang, USA 2012, 5:28
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLLdkjkOBv9VTIXUIhpfgjk0_iyPOwuTJY&feature=player_detailpage&v=ZM80F_J-QHE

_Streaming Museum presents “Mutual Core” on Times Square, documentary by David Bates, Jr., USA 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=X7_uxPDe0SM

_”Zen for Tube”, Michael Kontopoulos, USA 2007, 10 min. (excerpt): http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=GzLEIGli1UM&feature=endscreen

Sixpack-Films online || 11/6/2013

To mark the opening of the Diagonale 2013 in Graz, the festival of Austrian film, the Viennese non-profit distributor sixpackfilm has launched a new online film initiative in cooperation with the video-on-demand provider Flimmit.

To start off, 27 films from the sixpackfilm distribution list are available for online streaming at flimmit.com. This first instalment focuses on recent documentary cinema, featuring successful works by filmmakers including Sabine Derflinger, Joerg Burger, Harald Friedl and Angela Summereder. There is also an initial line-up of experimental works, by Virgil Widrich, Bady Minck and Manu Luksch.

Each film costs €2.99. Every month one film will be offered for free. Sixpack plans to expand its online offerings on an on-going basis, releasing the films as its own collection on Flimmit.

URL: http://www.flimmit.com/specials/sixpack/

Fourth “Crossing Borders / À la Frontière” short-film edition || 11/6/2013

L’Agence du court métrage in France has released the fourth edition of its European short-film programme “Crossing Borders / À la Frontière”.

The film series challenges the concept of borders in two respects. With their innovative stylistic approaches, the filmmakers transcend not only the limits of cinematic genres, but at the same time reflect on their own cultural identity. The new programme affords us seven glimpses of current European filmmaking across genre and national boundaries.

The following titles were selected for Crossing Borders #4: “Il capo” by Yuri Ancarani, “Oh Willy…” by Emma De Swaef & Marc Roels, “The Pub” by Joseph Pierce, “The Streets of the Invisibles” by Remo Rauscher, “Aalterate” by Christobal de Oliveira, “Killing the Chickens to Scare the Monkeys” by Jens Assur and “The Centrifuge Brain Project” by Till Nowak.

The programme is available for loan as DCP or on DVD from L’Agence du court métrage.

URL: http://www.agencecm.com/pages/pole_programmes_coll.php?id_coll=3&langue=fr

SHORT FILMS SUPPORTS in Europe || 11/6/2013

With the support of desks and antennae all over Europe, MEDIA Desk France has put together an extensive collection of information on the subject of short-film support in Europe. The information covers not only funding opportunities but also events such as festivals, markets and much more, all broken down by country. SHORT FILMS SUPPORTS can be downloaded as a PDF file in English from the national Media Desk websites.

Download: http://www.mediafrance.eu/IMG/pdf/MEDIA-fiches-courts-2013-WEB3.pdf

Guide published on media-art resources in France || 11/6/2013

In April the Magazine des Cultures Digitales (MCD), in cooperation with the French Ministry of Culture, published the “Guide des ressources et lieux de la création artistique, numérique & multimédia”. The directory comprises information, addresses, facts and figures from all over the country regarding venues, organizers, festivals, resources and funding opportunities. It is designed to assist artists in their search for suitable partners and supporters for multimedia projects and to encourage interdisciplinary exchange between media fields.

The guide can be purchased as a special edition of the magazine MCD (print or PDF) and is also available online for free, with the inclusion of diverse search options.

URL: http://www.guideartnumerique.fr/

Discoveries in the vlogosphere – Short film online || 11/6/2013

_”Stopover in Dubai”, Chris Marker, F/United Emirates 2011, reconstruction of the murder of a Hamas officer with footage from security cameras; Quelle: Gorgomancy (Chris Marker)
URL: http://www.gorgomancy.net/HTML/stopOverInDubai.html

-“Facts about Film”, International Film Bureau (1948), educational film about the right and wrong treatment of 16mm film; Quelle: Prelinger Archive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d_7ADw2IMI&feature=player_embedded

_”The Banker”, Phil Mulloy, UK 2012, Quelle: Animate Projects
http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_date/2012/the_banker

-“Jonah”, Kibwe Tavares, UK 2013 presented by Short of the Week
http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2013/05/31/jonah/

_”Done in 60 Seconds”, Philip Askins, UK, Animation (Blade Runner remake)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ySvJcikQg&feature=player_embedded

-“Petite histoire des plateaux abandonnès / Copies récentes du paysages ancienne”, Ra di Martino 2012, Star Wars movie sets in Marocco
http://vimeo.com/66261554

Why Poverty? – International campaign features short films || 11-02-13

For a project titled “Why Poverty?” the charitable organization STEPS commissioned a number of documentaries on the theme of poverty. In addition to eight feature-length films by renowned documentary filmmakers, the project also resulted in around 30 short documentaries by young filmmakers. The films have in the meantime been broadcast by 70 television stations and have been released online. Plans are for the films to travel the world during 2013 and be presented along with supplementary materials at events and programmes on poverty-related issues. As part of the campaign, the films can be borrowed and used free of charge by non-profit event organizers. STEPS International employs documentaries and other media both old and new in worldwide campaigns designed to spark debate and raise public awareness of important issues. Headquartered in Copenhagen and Cape Town, STEPS receives funding mainly from American foundations, film institutes and television broadcasters. The directors of the project “Why Poverty?” are Mette Hoffmann Meyer (television editor, DK), Don Edkins (filmmaker, ZA) and Nick Fraser (BBC, UK). STEPS already organized a similar project in 2007 called “Why Democracy?”

 

URL: http://www.whypoverty.net 

Thanks to Vimeo: gratuities for filmmakers and pay-per-view || 11-02-13

In September 2012 Vimeo introduced a kind of virtual donation plate. Paying Vimeo subscribers are now able to activate a tool called Tip Jar on their film pages. Satisfied viewers can then voluntarily leave a tip for filmmakers via PayPal. The amount is entirely at the discretion of the donor. Starting in 2013, Vimeo is taking things a step further. In future, filmmakers on Vimeo can earn money in other ways than by passing the hat. In a pilot project, Vimeo is now testing a pay-per-view system. Similar to the non-commercial German platform Onlinefilm.org, filmmakers are asked to set fixed prices for viewing their films, along with some conditions governing for example the distribution region or duration of use. Interfaces with other systems such as iOS or Roku allow users to watch films at their convenience on various mobile devices or as HDTV on their TV screens. With these two innovations, Vimeo is inaugurating a new strategy for financing the platform and giving the content producers a share of the revenues. While Tip Jar is similar to crowdfunding, pay-per-view is in fact an anachronism in these days of free-to-view websharing platforms where money is usually earned through advertising, as on YouTube. That said, Vimeo just might succeed with its new business model to further cultivate its quality image. It might then be able to eliminate pre-roll or other intrusive advertising. The portal of course takes a share of the filmmakers’ revenues. Vimeo today retains 15% of the tips left in the jar. From the point of view of the company, ambitious filmmakers in particular stand to profit from the new model. Vimeo is promoting the pilot project by pointing out that copyright holders and filmmakers will in future be able to get in contact directly with their audience, circumventing the distributors or other middlemen that otherwise take a cut of the business in the monetization chain.

Database of films from Africa || 11-02-13

The organizers of the Cologne African Film Festival “Out of Europe”, FilmInitiativ Köln e.V., have created an online database that provides detailed information on African films. At its launch in September 2012 the database contained 140 titles. Since then it has expanded continuously. The aim is not to put together as complete a filmography of African cinema as possible; the organizers instead wish to present selected works that have been tested at events and to provide information on how they can be obtained. In addition to filmographic information and portraits of film directors, distributors’ addresses, press releases and photos are supplied. The database is supplemented by reports submitted by people involved in (educational) work with African films on their experiences thus far, reports from African film festivals in Germany and abroad, as well as links to relevant websites from around the world. In addition, the initiators want to provide recommendations for compiling thematic film series on current and historical issues. The goal is to share with all those who are interested the experiences and contacts gained by the FilmInitiativ Köln e.V. over two decades of presenting African film festivals and series. The film database is in three languages (German, French, English). Only the editorial part of the Web page is not yet translated in full.

 

URL: http://www.filme-aus-afrika.de 

Sundance Shorts Online || 11-02-13

This January, like every year, the Sundance Film Festival put twelve new short films from the current festival programme online. The films can also be viewed after Sundance on the festival’s own YouTube channel, The Screening Room, which, after an interlude of collaboration with Yahoo, has now been reactivated. The twelve films include one of the seven award-winners at the festival: the animated film IRISH FOLK FURNITURE by Tony Donoghue (Ireland). Out of over 8,000 entries, a total of 68 films were nominated for the festival’s short film competition. Because of the not-very-restrictive regulations, a conspicuous number of commissioned works that have already been seen elsewhere ran in the 2013 competition, for example REINDEER (Nowness lifestyle magazine) and THE EVENT (Channel 4) as well as the music videos SERAPH (Sigur Ros) and UNTIL THE QUIET COMES (Flying Lotus). THE EVENT by Julia Pott and SERAPH by Dash Shaw are included on the Sundance playlist in The Screening Room.

 

URL Sundance Screening Room: http://www.youtube.com/user/ytscreeningroom 

DVD Spotting || 11-02-13

_Human Frames – 96 films on 10 DVDs 

Lowave (Paris) has released a ten-part DVD box of short films called Human Frames. This release presents some 100 films from Europe and Asia that were shown in the exhibition project of the same name at the art space Kunst-im-Tunnel in Düsseldorf (2011) and at the Werkstatt der Kulturen in Berlin (2012). In the art-film series, 77 video artists and filmmakers from Europe and Asia shed light on ten states of mind that characterize human existence. The topics are Happiness, Desire, Madness, Fanaticism, Fear, Anger, Melancholy and Isolation, as well as the Asian concepts of mono no aware (“the pathos of things”) and Impermanence. The works portray a timeless and universal spectrum of human emotional states that can be found across all national, social and cultural affiliations. 96 films, trailers, exhibition views, 99 biographies, 15 hours, booklet with 10 texts, subtitles: DE/EN/FR, PAL/ NTSC, all zones, stereo, 16:9 & 4:3, price €99

URL: https://www.lowave.com/de/projekte/764-human-frames-de 

 

_Claudio Caldini – Experimental Films 1975-1982

Twelve films by the Argentine filmmaker: Film Gaudí­ (1975), Baltazar (1975), Ventana (1975), Aspiraciones (1976), Ofrenda (1978), Cuarteto (1978), Vadi-Samvadi (1981), Un enano en el jardí­n (1981), Gamelan (1981), La escena circular (1982), Templo cerrado (1982) and A través de las ruinas (1982). Blu-ray DVD, 2 booklets (essay by Pablo Marin, texts by Claudio Caldini), limited edition (300), multizone, $79.95; Publisher: Antennae Collection (New York)

URL: http://www.antennaecollection.com 

Claudio Caldini: http://eldevenirdelaspiedras.blogspot.de/ 

 

_Jürgen Reble – Chemical Presence 1996-2011

Five hand-processed 16mm short films digitized in HD: Tabula Smaragdina (2010), Arktis (2004), Yamanote Lightblast (2006), Zagreb Tram Station (2009) and Liquid Movements (2011). Blu-ray DVD, 120 min, no region code, self-published in 2012, €100

URL: http://www.filmalchemist.de/blu_ray.html 

 

Emerging Artists – AG Kurzfilm and German Films release preview DVD AG

Kurzfilm and German Films will soon be distributing a film programme featuring “Emerging Artists”. For the premiere edition, an expert jury has put together a programme of eight works: CONFESSIONS WITH AN OPEN CURTAIN, Eli Cortiñas 2011; GAS AVALON, Carsten Aschmann 2011; SOUNDING GLASS, Sylvia Schedelbauer 2011; MEMORY EXTENDED, Yara Spaett 2011; SECHSTER SINN, DRITTES AUGE, ZWEITES GESICHT, Jan Riesenbeck 2012; SNAIL TRAIL, Philipp Artus 2012; ACHILL, Gudrun Krebitz, 2012 and LIKE RATS LEAVING A SINKING SHIP, Vika Kirchenbauer 2012. A preview DVD has in the meantime been released, which industry representatives can request from German Films or AG Kurzfilm. The programme will then be released as DCP and on Blu-ray disc in spring 2013 for international screenings.

Info: http://www.ag-kurzfilm.de/content.php?m1=3&l=de&pid_p=992 

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