An interview with Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck, head of Berlinale Shorts, together with an overview of events related to short film at the Berlinale, the largest audience festival in the world. Read More
The avatar trembles, barely able to stay up on its legs, then it falls over, its arms flailing. “Attempting a backflip is not safe. You can break your neck, or land on your head, or land badly on your wrists. None of that is nice, so my avatar does the trick,” an emotionless voice explains. The voice is that of animation director Nikita Diakur, distorted using voice cloning software. Yet its dry humour does manage to penetrate even through the manipulative software coils. Read More
“Are you afraid you’re not actually here,” asks a resounding voice in Gudrun Krebitz’s latest work “Echodrome” as the water ripples and splashes. There it is again – the ‘you’. A hallmark of Krebitz, a word that is at times a dialogic reassurance of the self, often addressing some metaphorical counterpart, or mostly directed at the potential audience. Read More
“What’s your name, where do you come from? Thanks for being here.” During the storyboard exhibition at the Kosovan Anibar Animation Festival, the volunteers eagerly seek out human contact… Read More
Enraptured, the two-legged creature picks the blissfully smiling axolotl up from the earth and pops it in its mouth. Sheer joy. Doing so, its hands – filigree stick-puppet hands – initially reach out tentatively then greedily for the tasty stop-motion being. In Jonatan Schwenk’s ZOON, over and again we encounter so many nuances and animation techniques, all at the same time. Read More