Short film specials in times of Corona

updated on 14 July 2020

Festivals are cancelled, film releases are postponed, cinemas are closed – public and cultural life is almost at a standstill. We wish all of you that you get through these crazy times well, especially healthy. Many initiatives are trying to creatively overcome the crisis and also offer short film compilations.

Here we would like to present a small collection of short film offers, which will be continuously updated. We would be happy to take up your suggestions, just send us a short message to  info@shortfilm.de.

 

 

Online editions of cancelled festivals

In this section we present selected festivals – in our service area you can find more information about cancelled, postponed or internet festivals. There is no claim to completeness.

 

August is usually time for Locarno, but this year the renowned festival in Switzerland is also breaking new ground. While the festival for feature films has been cancelled, the short film competition Pardi di Domani will take place in local cinemas and online.For the entire duration of Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films (August 5-15), the international Pardi di domani competition will be available worldwide, free of charge, on a VOD platform. Most of the Swiss films, on the other hand, will have their online viewings restricted to Switzerland. Each short will have a maximum of 1590 online viewers, matching the amount of people who can attend the physical screenings in Locarno every year. The free tickets have to be booked on the Festival website, 24 hours before the online screening, and will be available from the end of July. The films will also be shown in cinemas, at the PalaCinema in Locarno and the PalaVideo in Muralto, with proper premieres and subsequent repeat screenings.

Detailed information is available on www.locarnofestival.ch.

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International Corona Specials

 

In early April, the Corona Short Film Festival sent out its Call for Entries – within just three weeks, the festival organizers* reached over 1250 submissions from more than 70 countries. From these contributions, 35 films have now been selected for the expert jury and the voting of the online audience.In the meantime the winners have been chosen – Anne Isensee’s entry 1 BOTTLE OF WINE was awarded the Grand Jury Prize, QUARANTINE MOOD by Alessandro Marinelli received the Audience Award. All films of the festival are still online for some time. interfilm Berlin will include the award-winning entries in its portfolio for distribution and sales.

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.coronashortfilmfestival.com/program.html

 

The Zagreb Film Festival in cooperation with the Croatian Audiovisual Center has founded the streaming platform croatian.film to make Croatian short film more visible.

(in original version with English subtitles)

See our detailed article:

https://www.shortfilm.de/en/kroatische-kurzfilm-kostenlos-online/

 

Short films from French film history can be discovered temporarily free of charge at the “Festival à la Maison”.

See our detailed article:

https://www.shortfilm.de/en/franzoesische-filmgeschichte-voruebergehend-gratis-kurzfilme-beim-festival-a-la-maison/

 

My Darling Quarantine Short Film Festival – Online Festival, a new programme every week – combined with voting on your favourite film and a donation scheme

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.talkingshorts.com/festivals/my-darling-quarantine-short-film-festival

 

The IndieWire platform also put 15 short films by well-known directors – such as Andrea Arnold, Taika Waititi, Christopher Nolan and Nacho Vigolando – online:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/short-films-streaming-great-directors

 

On the website of the Swiss film magazine Maximum Cinema, John Canciani (artistic director) and Laura Walde (programme coordinator) of the International Short Film Festival Winterthur present a few thematically appropriate highlights and personal favourites from the diverse short film collection under the maxim “Short films against boredom”:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.maximumcinema.ch/kurze-filme-gegen-lange-weile

 

Georgian directors share their films online in the effort to support the COVID-19 shift

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.parachutefilms.ge/blog/Georgian-Films-Online

 

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Special offers from festivals in Germany

The Short Film Festival Oberhausen, which is also planning an online edition of its festival, has initiated a blog that will prepare for the festival until the end of May and post up to two contributions a day – including films produced by the festival itself – online.

see our more detailed introduction of the blog

The audience vote for the MuVi Award of the Short Film Festival Oberhausen takes place not only during pandemic times, but every year online.

see our announcement on this year’s competition

 

The Cologne Short Film Festival KFFK is currently making available a small selection of films available online from past editions of the festival:

(in original version with English or German subtitles)

http://www.kffk.de/mediathek/

 

The Film Festival Turkey Germany, which wanted to celebrate its 25th edition from 20 to 29 March, will show a short film from the festival’s archive on its website every day during this period. – Still available.

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.fftd.net/

 

The Cellul’art Festival also presents a small but fine selection of short film pearls on its website:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://cellulart.de/willkommen-bei-cellu-l-art

 

The Max Ophüls Preis Film Festival has also compiled an extensive list of links to streaming offers for films that were shown at the Saarbrücken festival in the past – the MOP Streamothek. This is being continuously expanded:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://ffmop.de/frontend/max_ophuels_preis_2018/de/programm/mop_streamothek

 

DOK Leipzig has listed 365 audience favourites and insider tips, documentaries and animated films for children and adults, which can be seen throughout the year:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.dok-leipzig.de/dok-365

 

MO & FRIESE – the Children’s Short Film Festival Hamburg has also put together a programme: “Mo & Friese Stay at Home” offers eight films that can be viewed individually or in chronological order. The programme – recommended for children from 6 years on – can be seen for free on Vimeo for a limited time of eight days.

https://vimeo.com/showcase/6881834

 

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Special offers from festivals international

The Encounters Film Festival in Bristol will also be held online this year. And the festival is already working with various partners under the motto #shortitout to offer visitors various options: there are thematic short film compilations – e.g. on the themes of family, imagination “Imagine” or compilations from archives. In addition, filmmakers give tips on filmmaking and are available to answer questions:

https://www.encounters.film/shortitout

 

The Animafest in Zagreb has not yet announced its new date – the waiting time will be sweetened with the Animafest Insights: it gives a wider audience an insight into the films that have been shown at the festival in the past and reminds them of success stories that animated films have written in recent years. Films by artists such as Eva Cvijanović, Paulina Ziółkowska, Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata, Nikita Diakur, Joanna Quinn, Céline Devaux, Veljko Popović, Tomek Popakul, Alice Saey or Alice Guimarães & Mónica Santos are shown.

(in original version with English subtitles)

http://animafest.hr/en/2020/news/read/animafest_zagreb_2020_presents_animafest_insights

 

The South by South West is one of the festivals that could not take place in March. This festival was partly moved to the internet, in cooperation with MailChimp and Oscilloscope Laboratories the current short film selection can be seen:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://mailchimp.com/presents/sxsw/

You can also watch the latest short films and music videos on the festival’s Vimeo channel:

https://vimeo.com/channels/sxswshorts/videos

 

The DokuFest Prizren – also offers a daily short film screening on its website. Curated by the Documentary Film Production Centre, it is putting a film online every day under the motto “Sweet and Short Quarantine Film – Your Daily Dose of Short Film”.

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://dokufest.com/2019/sweet-and-short-quarantine-film

 

Documentary film lovers can browse the IDFA festival website, where you can discover films from previous festival years, almost 200 of which are freely available:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.idfa.nl/en/collection/documentaries

 

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Distribution specials

interfilm Berlin provides four programs against boredom and for staying at home on its website under #CoronaKino. The programmes on offer are Neighbourhood Madness, Home Sweet Home, TeenScreen Meets CoronaKino for teenagers and KUKI at Home for children. The programs for adults and teenagers charge EUR 3.99 for 72 hours for streaming or EUR 9.99 for permanent streaming, but also for download. The KUKI for home is EUR 1.99 and EUR 5.99 respectively

(in original version with German subtitles)

https://www.interfilm.de/coronakino

 

A customized Corona package – now also available from the Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg. The Corona Shining – 7 outstanding short films that have been shown in Cannes, at the Berlinale, at the Short Film Festival Winterthur, at the Short Film Festival Hamburg and many other festivals. All films take place at home, where it can get scary sometimes.

The programme costs 3.99 € for 72 hours for streaming or 9.99 € for permanent streaming or download:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thecoronashining

 

The Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg also has a YouTube channel with their favourite short films, so it’s worth (once again) stopping by:

(in original version with English subtitles)

https://www.youtube.com/user/KurzFilmAgentur

 

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Short films for children

 

Short films – not only for children – can be found on the YouTube channel of Studio Film Bilder:

(German or English version available)

https://www.youtube.com/user/filmbilder

 

interfilm Berlin also has an offer for children at #CoronaKino: “KUKI at home”, the programme costs 1.99 € for 72 hours in stream, or 5.99 € for download or permanent streaming

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kukifuerzuhause

 

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Short film on (German) television

From unicato – Junger Film on MDR (german TV broadcaster), a monthly short film magazine, 57 videos, both short films and interviews with actors on the German short film scene – such as Lars Henrik Gass (festival director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen) or director Brenda Lien – are currently available in the ARD media library:

(in German or original version with German subtitles)

https://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/search/unicato

 

Always worth a (short) look is of course also the offer of ARTE Kurzschluss:

(German or French, films in original version with subtitles)

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC-014513/kurzschluss/

even more short films from the archive

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/RC-019277/kurzfilme-frei-haus/

 

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Art and experimental films

 

The cinemas of the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art e.V. in Berlin have also been closed since March 13. But the Arsenal has now opened a virtual film art offer with SAAL 3.
Every week new films are made available online. The programme is free of charge. Numerous filmmakers and artists whose works are represented in the Arsenal’s distribution programme have declared their solidarity and made their films available for online presentation.

(in original version with German or English subtitles)

https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/mitgliedschaft/arsenal-3/anmeldung.html

In addition to the programme for each week, Q&As with the filmmakers* and artists* whose films are presented will be held. The talks take place on Thursday from 19.30 hrs and on Friday from 17.00 hrs. How does it work? Just go to https://meet.jit.si/arsenal3 to be part of the meeting.

 

Already since March 18th, the Hamburg film artists – collective VETO Film has been offering a streaming service in its newsletter as well as on facebook and instagram with a series of art films, including many short films from the VETO catalogue. By subscribing to the newsletter or via the facebook page, you will be informed when new films are added

(in original version or with English subtitles)

https://www.facebook.com/VETOFilmEdition

 

The Collectif Jeune Cinema in Paris has also closed its doors – the Parisian organisation that distributes experimental cinema, organises regular monthly screenings and an annual festival of alternative and experimental cinema in Paris has now made more than 250 films from its distribution catalogue available online. In the coming weeks, various programmes (also for children) will be put together:

(in original version with French subtitles)

https://vimeo.com/showcase/2534222

 

With “CABIN FEVER: Coping with COVID-19 playlist of online experimental films & videos”, Kate Lain, American video artist and experimental filmmaker, has compiled an online overview of experimental films available on the Internet. This overview is divided into categories and can be continuously updated

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DHealTzCR0qNkq-fbuPRd9Nzi7NSAM5HKQ84grFEFO8/htmlview?sle=true#

 

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further services: archives, YouTube channels etc.

DFFB-Archive is an offer of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin in cooperation with the German Cinematheque. It is definitely worthwhile to dive in here. Films, photos and numerous other documents in the form of production records, correspondence and the like from the history of the academy can be discovered. The archive located in the Deutsche Kinemathek covers the period between 1966 and 2015 and is continuously supplemented and expanded by the dffb.

https://dffb-archiv.de

 

Short films – not only for children – can be found on the YouTube channel of Studio Film Bilder, for example:

(German or English version available)

https://www.youtube.com/user/filmbilder

 

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Podcasts on short film

You can also talk about short film, as the short film podcasts prove:

Simply Short!, the podcast by Insa Wiese (festival director of the International Short Film Week Regensburg, which had to be cancelled last week due to the spread of the corona virus) has been in existence since June 2019. Since then, 24 discussions with actors from the German and international short film scene have taken place – just listen:

(in German)

https://www.podcast.de/podcast/675534/

 

The Talking Shorts podcast service is constantly being expanded, with currently nine interviews in the interview section – Enrico Vanucci talks to Anna Henckel-Donnersmark (Berlinale Shorts), Jukka-Pekka Laakso (Tampere Film Festival), Sarah Schlüssel (Berlinale Talents Short Form Station Coordinator), Sanne Jehoul (Glasgow Short Film Festival Co-Director), Emilia Mazik (Festival Director of Short Waves, Poznan), Mathieu Janssen (Head of Competitions at Go Short, Nijmegen), Marie-Elaine Riou (Festival Director of REGARD-Saguenay International Short Film Festival), Insa Wiese (Artistic Director International Short Film Week Regensburg) and Anne Gaschütz (Deputy Festival Director FILMFEST DRESDEN).

(in English)

https://www.talkingshorts.com/interviews

 

It’s also worth listening to Indie Film Talk; it’s not just about short film, but about independent filmmaking in general. Several articles are already available on the current Corona crisis

(in German)

https://indiefilmtalk.de

 

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