The experimental setup is gruesome: a minimal space consisting of perhaps four square meters. Tiled on the inside, with a pane of glass to view through, and a basic foam… Read More
Magazine
Expanding Reality
“I am an artist who makes films, not a filmmaker who makes art”
Ein Interview mit Ulu Braun, der bereits zum 6. Mal bei Berlinale Shorts vertreten ist und ein Überblick über den Kurzfilm auf der Berlinale. Read More
Interview with Marie Zrenner
Marie Zrenner won won the German Short Film Award in the category of feature films with a running time of more than 10 minutes and up to 30 minutes with ALEX IN DEN FELDERN (Alex in the Fields) in 2023. In the latest episode of Talks’n’Topics, she talks to Luc-Carolin Ziemann about her enjoyment of fiction in documentaries and the importance of trust in documentary film. Read More
What seems like Utopia: Ausländer filmmaking in Berlin (1965-1989)
On the exhibition If the Berlin wind blows my flag. Art and Internationalism before the fall of the Berlin Wall on view from Sep 14, 2023 – Jan 14 2024 at different venues in Berlin — Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k), daadgalerie, Galerie im Körnerpark, and Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg Read More
A festival as a genuflexion – the 20th anniversary edition of Animateka
A filmmakers Q&A – not right after the film but on the following day, and on top of that in a different venue, isn’t that a terrible idea? Won’t the auditorium be empty? The answer is a definite no: Because many people come to the Q&As that festival director Igor Prassel organises every single day of the 20th anniversary edition of Animateka (27.11.-3.12.) together with Chris Robinson – whose main job is the direction of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, yet he also serves as an advisor to the Slovenian animation institution. Read More
Interview mit Hoda Taheri und Boris Hadžija
Hoda Taheri and Boris Hadžija met a few years ago at the DFFB in Berlin, became friends and later started making films together. In the new episode of Talks’n’Topics, they talk to Borjana Gaković about what makes their collaboration special, the documentary in fiction, bureaucracy and sexuality in film. Read More
Fleeting Fictions: Milena Gierke’s Super 8 short films
Berlin-based Milena Gierke’s Super 8 films exist within a small yet formidable tradition of experiential diary and portrait films that combine playfulness with innovative seriousness. She studied experimental film at… Read More
Interview with FILZ Film Initiative Leipzig
FILZ was founded in 2012 as a self-organised and autonomous film seminar within the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts (HGB). The Film Initiative Leipzig FILZ is an association of authors, filmmakers and artists. All participants share a strong interest in artistic, documentary work, with a focus on the moving image.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann talks to Clara Wieck, Juliane Jaschnow, Jonas Matauschek and Nick Teplov – four of FILZ’s current fourteen active members – about the collective, current joint projects and networks, and the importance of ongoing dialogue. Read More
“Limited Possibilities Create Freedom” –
The Animation Filmmaker Sonja Rohleder
Columbus gazes happily from the wings of the dove that carries him over and through the world. Visualised by a papercut, a profile that seems to consist only of a nose and a single eye, he appears as an anti-version of the explorer – mischievous, down-to-earth, completely without ambitions of wanting to claim ownership. It’s an unusual protagonist Sonja Rohleder has animated here in co-direction with Veronika Samartseva for Keimzeit’s song Kolumbus, and yet, it’s prototypical of Rohleder’s animation style and production process. Read More
Still there. About the films of Marian Mayland
“Please Stop Breaking the Windows. Still Occupied,” a text panel that casually appears in Marian Mayland’s first single-channel video work, already pointing in the direction of her later films. Read More
The X Factor, Birgit Hein – writing, filmmaking, and curating in the 1970s
Birgit Hein was among the most important figures of avant-garde film culture in Germany and Europe. Along with her ex-husband and collaborator Wilhelm Hein, she led film into radical and uncharted territories, concerning herself unreservedly with the development, criticism and dissemination of avant-garde film.
She passed away in February 2023 at the age of 80, leaving behind a trail of pioneering accomplishments, singular in their scope and significance. Read More
What is the point of film festivals?
Film festivals, or more precisely, the film-cultural, social and economic roles of film festivals have become the subject of discussion, and that not just since the corona pandemic. The unique… Read More
Interview mit Julia Roesler – werkgruppe2
Julia Roesler and her collective werkgruppe2, consisting of four artists from different disciplines, work together primarily in film and theater. In their artistic work, they reflect on themes of social minorities, the invisible and the excluded, exploring the boundaries of documentary and fiction. Read More
Interview with Anna Roller
Anna Roller is a director and writer from Munich, she already experimented with the camera as a child and teenager. Since 2014 she studied at the University of Television and Film.
With Borjana Gaković Anna Roller talks about her short films PAN (2017) and GÖR (2021), which successfully screened at festivals worldwide and won awards. Read More
Interview with Betina Kuntzsch
As an artist, Betina Kuntzsch has developed the genre of video drawing, often combining hand-drawn animations with historical film, photo and archive material to create animated, documentary short films. Betina Kuntzsch talks with Borjana Gaković about her short film HALMASPIEL (Chinese Checkers, 2017) – which tells the story of her mother. Read More
Young People and Short Film Audiences
The Short Film Conference’s recent event sought to examine not only how we bring audiences to short films, but why it is crucial to do so. With a large number… Read More
Volker Schlecht: Seeking the Right Image
An image that fits to a T – what is that exactly? And what precedes it – perhaps another image, one before the inner eye, or merely just a vague thematic hunch? These are questions that arise quickly when you explore and engage yourself with Volker Schlecht, who pivots back and forth between the moving and the non-moving image. Read More
Interview with Michael Fetter Nathansky
Borjana Gaković talks to Michael Fetter Nathansky about his 2017 short film GABI, his working methods and current projects. Read More
Interview mit Sophie Linnenbaum
Borjana Gaković spricht für Talks’n’Topics mit Regisseurin Sophie Linnenbaum über eines ihrer früheren Werke – den Kurzfilm PIX – aber auch über aktuelle Projekte wie ihr Langfilm-Debüt THE ORDINARIES, das Ende März 2023 in den Kinos startet. Read More
Film Festivals – Crises, Opportunities, Perspectives
In their highly readable anthology “Film Festivals – Crises, Opportunities, Perspectives,” the authors Tanja C. Krainhöfer and Joachim Kurz explore the situation in the German film festival scene, and that especially during and after the corona pandemic. Read More
Interview with Alison Kuhn
Alison Kuhn is one of Germany’s most interesting young filmmakers – she is a writer, actress and director and has made a name for herself in recent years with multiple… Read More
“The short film is not some proof of potential – it stands for itself”
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
Interview with Ilaria Di Carlo
Ilaria Di Carlo is an Italian artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Berlin. With her artistic documentary films, which have won numerous international awards, she has developed her… Read More
Interview with Thea Sparmeier and Jakob Werner
Thea Sparmeier and Jakob Werner are two of the three directors of the film GLÜCKPFAD (Happy Trail), which premiered at DOK Leipzig in 2021. For Talks’n’Topics, they talk to Sven… Read More
The Film Critique’s Fear of Animation Film
An Interminable Polemic
Wann eigentlich ist der Zeichentrickfilm ins Hintertreffen geraten gegenüber einer Fülle von Animationsfilmen unterschiedlicher Techniken? Man merkt: Wenn ich nun laut über Berührungsängste der Filmkritik mit dem Animationsfilm nachdenke, begebe ich mich auf gefährliches Glatteis. Read More
Nikita Diakur
An Avatar to Combat Fakes
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
Reflecting Diversity: German Shorts Presented at the Locarno Film Festival
Known for its intriguing curatorial choices, Locarno Film Festival does not make an exception at the time of preparing the selection of its Pardi di Domani short film section… Read More
The reel thing – film laboratories between industry and art
It is a world of its own, the world of the film labs – especially when referring to the artist-run or self-governing film labs and not the industrial or commercial… Read More
“We believe in short film”
Interview with Giona Nazzaro and Eddie Bertozzi of Locarno Film Festival
The Locarno Film Festival, one of the most important of all the international film festivals, has a tradition of supporting short films. Not only does it host competitions for national and international shorts, but also Shortsweek, which takes place online in February. When Giona Nazzaro took over as artistic director in 2021, he further strengthened this commitment. Together with Eddie Bertozzi, who is responsible for Pardi di Domani, the festival’s short film program, they launched a new competition for films by established directors: Corti d’autore. Shortfilm.de met them both shortly before this year’s edition to discuss their visions regarding short films and their efforts at integrating them into the overall ecosystem of the festival. Read More
Nervous landscapes.
On the films of Ojoboca.
Ojoboca (Anja Dornieden und Juan David González Monroy) machen zugleich mehr und weniger als „Kurzfilme“. Mehr, weil sie neben Filmen auch Performances und Installationen entwickeln, derzeit an ihrem zweiter Langfilm arbeiten und Texte von einer eigenwilligen Literarizität fast alle ihre Bewegtbildarbeiten begleiten. Read More