Hamburg Short Film Festival :: June 08

Easily the most rock n’ roll of the European festivals, the Hamburg Short Film Festival screened a fantastic selection of short films this year. With strong International, German and No-Budget competitions and a focus on Israel, the festival showed a very wide mix of animation, documentary, experimental and Live Action. From the Future Shorts catalogue, Sean Conway’s ‘Alex and her Arse Truck’ played as part of the international competition. You can see the film as part of this month’s Future Shorts festival – click here for screening details.

The festival club kept everyone entertained until the early hours with electronic dance music from ‘Klingtsogut!‘ and sound and visuals from the promoters of Russian and Eastern European music and culture, ‘Datscha-Project‘.

And between 7pm and 9pm, the infamous ‘35ml Club’ cranks into action, you pull back the curtain to reveal a smoke filled room full of filmmakers and industry guests debating which bottle to try next… The idea is everyone brings a bottle of spirit from their country – usually something local and unusual… something that you might hope to never see again in your life. In my case, that was an unnamed ‘homemade’ Romanian spirit with 70% / 80%? on the label…

3 days at International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen

In early May I attended the 54th International Kurzfilmtage in Oberhausen. The oldest short film festival in Europe, it is renowned for launching the careers of famous directors and as a place where experiments have been successfully carried out that were not dared anywhere else.

The catalogue certainly reflects the experimental nature of this festival with a collection of stimulating and challenging films by directors and visual artists. The programming underpinned by curent cultural and theoretical discourses also featured themed programmes such as ‘Border-Crossers and Trouble-Makers’ and a profile of the Jarman-esque Andrew Kötting.

In addition to the programming, what really makes Oberhausen special is the Podium discussion forum. I walked into the middle of Carl Hegemann passionately discussing short film in education

General talk of the festival seemed to revolve around what the role of the film festival has become in an age where short films can be heavily promoted online and through new media. Also, given that cinema as an institution is in crisis, whilst the number of film festivals continues to grow, does this result in new responsibilities for film festivals? Should festivals pay screening fees instead of providing prize money and awards? How do film festivals respond to the internet? Even to the extent of – are film festivals becoming a new contemporary museum?

My Hot Picks from the festival:

Always Decent
Dir: Katja Pallijef
Finland / 2007 20′00

KJFG No. 5
Dir: Alexj Aleksee
Hungary / 2007 2′00

Headcharge
Dir: Almagul Menliayeva
Kazakhstan / 2007 / 12′30

ZzZ is Playing: Grip (ZzZ)
Dir: Roel Wouters
Netherlands / 2007 / 4′30

This very hospitable and friendly festival is recommended for those interested in experimental and artists’ film. http://www.kurzfilmtage.de/ next festival May 2009.