Bamberger Kurzfilmtage || 28.01.2018 Spielfilmpreis: ALL THE TIRED HORSES, Sebastian Mayr, A Dokumentarfilmpreis: MR. UPPERCUT – HOW TO BE A CHAMPION, Maximilian Conway, D Animations-/Experimentalfilmpreis: THE MAN IS BIG, Anna… Read More
EU copyright laws have long been lagging behind the digital reality. So the new ‘Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market’ is designed to remedy this situation. While the… Read More
Certamen de cortos Ciudad de Soria-Castilla y León (ES) || 26.11.2017 Premio Mejor Cortometraje: CHIKE, Lucia Ravanelli, ARG Premio Mejor Cortometraje Animación: PUSSY, Renata Gasiorowska, PL Premio Mejor Cortometraje e… Read More
Just the first few seconds of this film are enough to create an all-pervading sense of oppression that predominates for the next 15 minutes. “Berlin Metanoia” is a dark, almost (hellishly) dreamlike trip into the innermost realms of a city that loves to market itself as young and cool, but which has lost its soul somewhere between hipsterism, tourist onslaughts and hype. In his latest short fiction film, which celebrated its premiere at the 2016 Berlinale, Erik Schmitt approaches the latent psychotic Berliner identity with an intensity that continues to reverberate for a long time afterwards. Read More
A few years ago, I already reported on a ‘film festival’ that was never held, but for which an anonymous festival organiser pocketed the film submission fees. At that… Read More
Many online submission platforms are now teeming with film festivals – but often these are not genuine festivals as such and the film festival designation is amiss here. In these… Read More
Part 1 Controversial Browser Copy Protection to Become Standard On 18 September 2017, following years of discussions and fierce resistance from non-commercial internet organisations, the World Wide Web Consortium… Read More
Festival de Cinema de Girona (ES) || 30.09.2017 Millor Pellicula Curt Ficció: EL BARBERO, UN RELATO DE AUTODEFENSAS, Abraham Escobedo Salas, Mex Millor Pellicula Experimental Art Film (ex aequo):… Read More
Lukas Marxt wasn’t particularly surprised when Adam Hyman of the LA Film Forum told the audience at the Goethe Institute Los Angeles they need not worry about the narrative of… Read More
The films by Kyne Uhlig and Nikolaus Hillebrand are full of things that you would usually find in the kitchen or a closet. Gherkins march in step, spoons develop a dubious life of their own and lonely socks desperately search for their better halves. The filmmakers, who live and work together in Cologne and go by the name of “niky-Bilder”, prefer to use everyday as well as lost-and-found objects and breathe new life into them for their animated films – and that’s especially practical considering that they live right next door to their studio, making it easier to, whenever the need arises, place the contents of their domestic cupboards in the spotlight. Read More
“Every Frame a Painting” is the name of Canadian filmmaker and editor Tony Zhou’s YouTube channel, which has been online since 2014 and engages with the phenomenon of cinema…. Read More
Roars of warfare in the cinemas and a cannibal in the tofu factory Film as medium at eminent exhibition documenta 14 from Adam Szymczyk constitutes a reading of modernity’s… Read More
Festival Internacional de Cine de Monterrey FICMTY (Mex) || 31.08.2017 Mejor Cortometraje Internacional de Ficción: HIJO POR HIJO, Juan Avella, Venezuela Mejor Cortometraje Internacional Documental: KOPFÜBER, Daniel Thomaser, D… Read More
The “Audio Visual Access” (AVA) project, which is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA, networks European short film festivals with local public libraries, with the aim of reaching and attracting… Read More
When Werner Nekes died on January 22nd, 2017 the film world not only lost an artist but a scholar too. Just as there are painters simply in love with colour… Read More
In 2016, Animate Projects¹ presented a series of touring programmes, Move It², for hire by cinemas across the UK. The four programmes offered a wide cross-section of current animation practice,… Read More
cellu l´art -Kurzfilmfest Jena (D) || 30.04.2017 Bester Spielfilm: STACEY EN DE ALIEN STACEY AND THE ALIEN), Nelson Polfliet, B Bester ExAnDo: CIPKA (PUSSY), Renata Gasiorowska, PL Preis der Jugendjury:… Read More
Let’s Cee Film Festival, Wien (A) || 27.03.2017 Bester Film: THE BUZZING OF A BUMBLEBEE, Vladimir Beldian, RU Bester Film: A NEW HOME, Ziga Virc, SLO Publikumspreis: UNDERCOOLING, Olga Kosanovic,… Read More
Film agencies as brokers between filmmakers and the film festivals. What does this achieve? A film business area that is still fresh. Read More
The artist Vika Kirchenbauer engages in something that is probably rather akin to the idea of critical art – including all the obtrusiveness and potential inherent in such a concept…. Read More
After getting the impression at some point that just a handful of short films scoop up the lion’s share of awards and honours each year worldwide, we began publishing here… Read More
Academy Awards (USA) || 26.02.2017 Winner Documentary (Short Subject): THE WHITE HELMETS, Orlando von Einsiedel, S Winner Short Film (Animated): PIPER, Alan Barillaro, CAN Winner Short Film (Live Action): SING,… Read More
Camerimage, Torun (PL) || 19.12.2016 Student Etudes Competition Golden Tadpole: HAN, Jonathan Choo, Singapore Student Etudes Competition Silver Tadpole: SUMMER, Martyna Jakimowska, PL Student Etudes Competition Bronze Tadpole: JAHRZEIT, Thomas… Read More
In this text, the intention is not to show that the short film format is especially political, nor to reveal the extent to which it may be so, nor whether it is any more political than other filmic formats. Instead, I would like to discuss, on the basis of the three examples provided, in which way these films, on the one hand, engage with politics in terms of their content and, on the other hand, how they have become political themselves with regard to the way and manner in which they were produced and are presented. Read More
While queues of people were waiting at the cinema box offices in Leipzig to get tickets to the Dok International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, one of the most renowned film festivals globally, on 4 November 2016, about 80 staff members and representatives of film festivals and film-related initiatives, as well as freelancers and journalists, came together for an urgently needed stocktaking and review. Read More
In response to the question of how best to call the art made by Matthias Wermke and Mischa Leinkauf, after a lengthy discussion both reply: sculpture. (In German, the word for sculpture is Bildhauerei, which literally translates as “image-hewing”). While not meant entirely seriously, it sounds funny and nails it surprisingly well. Firstly, the description contains the kind of dry humour that is quintessential to the Berlin artist-duo’s work. Read More
Programmers and curators both exist in the cinema sector. However, for the majority of movie theatres it is not necessary to draw a terminological distinction between the two activities, as the programme of a normal commercial cinema is determined according to economic criteria in accordance with market forces and not on the basis of other considerations regarding content. In first run cinemas, the selection is limited a priori to those film releases that are offered by the distributors. Within this framework there is some room for individual decisions regarding quality. Read More
blicke aus dem Ruhrgebiet (Bochum) || 27.11.2016 Dokumentarfilmpreis Ruhr: ERFRISCHT EINZIGARTIG, Johannes Klais, D Preis für experimentelle Kunst Ruhr: JAMAIS-VU, Werner Biedermann, D Action: Gender Preis: DIE KÜCHE MEINER GROßMUTTER,… Read More
