There is a cinema that is rebellious, uncompromising, unreasonable and at times brilliant. It does not have to choose between blockbuster and arthouse. A cinema, where art and genre, experiment and narrative, adherence to style and breaching of style love each other with neither snobbery nor pride. From June 4th till June 10th, it will be our guest. There will be more than 300 films from all around the world, in all genres and all film languages, with five competitions, six special programmes and extra screenings, both in the cinema and under the open sky, at the KurzFilmKlause and in the No-Budget Hotel...

The openings of the 29th Hamburg International Short Film Festival and the 15th Mo&Friese Children’s Short Film Festival still lie about three months ahead of us. However, in order to cope with the huge variety in short film production, our selection teams have already been plodding for months through more than 5,000 submissions from over 70 countries.

From this enormous number of works, they will choose the best contributions – more than 200 films – that will be shown in our competition programs: The International, German, Hamburg, NoBudget as well as Three-Minute Quickie Competition.

For media with a long editing process, we are publishing the topics of this year’s special programmes for the first time. In addition, we have compiled some festival facts and figures as well as a list of competitions and awards.

We would highly appreciate an editorial consideration and schedule announcement. If you have any further questions and requests concerning festival logos, motifs or photos, please do not hesitate to contact us.

ISFF Facts and Figures

•    The ISFF presents a total of more than 300 short films from more than 40 countries.

•    From over 5,000 film submissions, more than 200 films will be shown in our competition screenings.

•    Our juries and the audience will award a total sum of more than 15,000 Euros in the context of our festival competitions.

•    More than 15,000 visitors are going to attend approximately 100 programmes and events in six different cinemas and at open-air locations.

•    Furthermore, over 50 short films from more than 20 countries will be presented at the 15th Mo&Friese Children’s Short Film Festival

•    A team of more than 100 people will be working on the preparations and realization of the festival.

Special Programmes 2013

As always, we will be presenting carefully curated special programmes in addition to our competitions.

COUNTRY: Films from Sámi – Indigenous Cinema From Europe

Since the founding of the International Sámi Film Centre in Kautokeino (Guovdageaidnu), Norway, in 2007, a very productive film scene has come into being in the very North of Europe. Across national borders, Sámi filmmakers from Norway, Sweden and Finland are dealing with their cultural roots – exclusively in short fiction films and documentaries, as of yet – which address the social and political implications of the Sámi People as an ethnic minority in the modern world.

The post-millenial works that will be screened in three programmes at the ISFF range from anthropological documentations of reindeer breeding and artisan craftwork, to surveys of changing lifestyles, as well as fiction shorts and videos for the Eurovision Song Contest.

We are looking forward to welcoming many special guests at our screenings.

Curator: Jörg Schöning (Szene Hamburg, CineGraph, Nordic Film Days Lübeck)

FINDS: Souvenirs From the Junk Room – A Cinematographic Treasure

"Those who grew up in the 50s and started to go to cinema screenings and developed an interest in sophisticated films saw – intentionally or unknowingly – films of the  »Neue Filmkunst Walter Kirchner«." (epd film)

Back then, Walter Kirchner did not only bring films by Bunuel, Clair, Antonioni or Renoir to the silver screen, he also revived film history and uncovered works by Lubitsch, Ophüls and Hitchcock from the 20s and 30s. However, Kirchner’s interest was not restricted to feature films only. Up until the bankruptcy of his company, "Filmkunst GmbH" in 1974, he also collected short films. From renowned festivals such as Cannes and Mannheim he acquired all types of film art – mostly avant-garde, documentary, fiction or animation. After Kirchner’s death in 2010, his daughter Sandra Kirchner left about 100 35mm short film prints film to the faithful safekeeping of the KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg (Hamburg Short Film Agency).

We have carefully examined the gems of this treasure, which had been hidden under four decades of dust, and proudly present the highlights of the Film Art Kirchner Collection.

Curator: Giuseppe Gagliano (Hamburg Short Film Agency, Short Film Archive)

LAB: Sounds of the Borderlands – Of Smugglers, Neuroscientists and Dropouts

Since apparently everyone is moving towards the center of societies and the urban areas of this world, we take the time to listen to the sounds at the fringes of society, perception and cultures – their crunches, whistles and chirps. Frontier crossers, smugglers, neuroscientists, dropouts and other specialists for borders and the marginal serve as motion detectors and scouts.

Following their festival programmes of the past four years ("Urban Sounds" in 2009, "Sound, Picture, Action" in 2010, "Man-Machine: Where Are the Riots?" in 2011 and "Onomatopoeia - Poetry and all that Jazz" in 2012), our lab duo Hanna Nordholt and Fritz Steingrobe listens once again very carefully to detect the sounds that have been preserved on celluloid, magnetic tape and digital video discs.

Curators: Hanna Nordholt and Fritz Steingrobe (Hamburg)

EARLY AND COMMISSIONED WORKS: Commercial Breaks

Avant-garde Between Advertising Film and Eye Music

The 1920s was a time of fantastic collaboration between avant-garde filmmakers and the film industry. These experimental filmmakers were motivated by financial pragmatism on the one side, and on the other, by the aspiration to subvert the commercial film and its aesthetics by use of new visual forms. In 1921, the film critic Bernhard Diebold referred to this novel fusion of painting and music in the so-called abstract film – as represented by artists like Walther Ruttmann or Hans Richter – as "eye music". Somewhere between advertisements for chocolate and face cream, women on the moon and dreaming Hunnish queens, avant-garde and industry worked hand in hand, as the vision of creating an "eye music" in abstract film influenced the aesthetics of contemporary cinema.

Curator: Anja Ellenberger (art historian and film scholar)

Some More Logos

Advertising, marketing, and PR translate into film shots with seemingly unlimited budgets, money, style, corruptibility – not just since the advent of "Mad Men". The advertising industry is the launch pad for careers and a financial paradise of milk and honey. Throughout the years, advertising film production has brought about a great number of both masterpieces and the bizarre, as well as bread-and-butter works from famous film directors. This year’s special programme of early and commissioned works presents a number of excellent examples of advertising on film. Our guests from the advertising industry and experienced filmmakers with a background in advertising will help us take a closer look, in order to catch a glimpse behind the polished surfaces. Colleagues and peers are welcome to applaud each other, pass criticism or share a good laugh … We are looking forward to an evening full of fascinating commercials beyond the standard advertising film stock.

Curators: Sven Schwarz (Administrative Director of the Hamburg International Short Film Festival) and Mirjam Wildner (Hamburg)

GALLERY: (dark) traces – Recent Trends in Myth Creation in European Video Art

Anachronistic dualisms such as good and evil, traces of abysms, and myth building around places and people are impulses that can be discovered in various kinds of forms in video art. The selection of works focuses on these ambivalent, at times subtle traces, that abstractly present the fascination for the cynical-diabolical, as well as the apotheosis of historical and fictional figures and circumstances.

Curator: Monika Lahrkamp (Cologne)

MOTIF: The Mass Ornament – Cinematic Reliefs

The title of the programme may be borrowed from Siegfried Kracauer’s same-titled collection of essays, but unlike his studies about the "exotic of daily life" it is compliant with its literal meaning and addresses the aesthetics of surfaces. The programme features the biomechanic choreographies of the Spartakiads, the ad infinitum aiming demonstrations of power, animals that are driven by instincts of defense and attack, industrial chorus lines and enigmatic molecular structures. In two programme blocks, our curator Lars Frehse presents the fascinating and ephemeral gathers on the topmost layers of the moving image.

Curator: Lars Frehse (Hamburg)

Competitions at the 29th Hamburg International Short Film Festival

Once again, the Hamburg International Short Film Festival will present more than 200 films in its competitions and more than a total sum of 15,000 Euros will be awarded to the winners.

International Competition

NoBudget Competition

German Competition

Hamburg Short Film Night

Three-Minute Quickie Competition (Topic: Breakthrough)

Mo&Friese Children’s Short Film Festival

(Mo Competition: programme suited for ages 4+ and 6+, Friese Award: programmes for ages 9+ and 12+, "HIGH FIVE!" Competition)

Topic of the Three-Minute Quickie Competition: Breakthrough

Each year, our popular Three-Minute Quickie Competition gives short and shortest filmmakers a homework assignment: shoot a film of three minutes maximum pursuing a given topic. This year’s topic: Breakthrough.

Appendix, career management or the extension of an apartment. Levees, bones, or roadblocks. Three minutes filled with drama, punchlines or psychedelic forms.

Important! Your breakthrough may take no longer than three minutes and must arrive in our mailbox by April 1st, 2013. Therefore, break through and catch it on camera!

Extras

As usual, the Hamburg International Short Film Festival invites you to screenings under the open night sky. The Open-Air Programme on the festival site, and the popular event A Wall Is a Screen – a walking tour where mobile projectors turn walls of brick and concrete into movie screens – have been drawing huge audiences for many years.

Strange Days is the title of a joint film programme curated by Vienna Independent Shorts, the International Short Film Festival Winterthur and the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. Following the concept – one title, one topic – each festival puts together a programme which – together with the other two – will be jointly screened at all three festivals – because all three cherish the short, audacious, experimental and borderline manifestations of film art, the "short film". We all know that retinal flicker and glaring in our heads – those Strange Days after having seen thousands of films. In three programmes, Strange Days deals with disturbing reality shifts in terms of motifs, contents and formal aesthetics. We encounter states of adolescent emergence, dreamlike moments of zero gravity and the logic of a topsy-turvy world.

For two years now, our festival has resided at a former metal industry compound:

Thus the programme Industrial Urban Warfare features short films which reflect the ambience of our unique festival cosmos. Excavators attack the urban space, stately factory towers protrude from the city center, chimneys spit smoke into the twilight, cranes heave giant containers onto a mechanized area – industrial urban warfare. Our short film theme park consists of fiction works, visual collages and experimental structures and arrangements. The continuous-loop programme will be on permanent display at our festival site. Everyone is invited to explore the compound to find the exact screening location.

Our worn-out cathedral of the industrial age has many dark hidden corners that provide the perfect ambience for short horror flicks. In our Chamber of Horrors, we will present a programme that features exquisite horror films from both our Short Film Archive as well as current submissions.

Our combination of Spanish horror-trash-exploitation movies and a horror punk concert at our festival club will surely be another extraordinary experience not to be missed.

The 15th Mo&Friese Children’s Short Film Festival

The Mo&Friese Children’s Short Film Festival is one of the world’s few film festivals for children that presents short films exclusively. The age-appropriately graded festival programme is directed at kids and teens between 4 and 14 years. Our hosts take great care to present the programmes in a child-oriented manner. Foreign-language short films will be dubbed live in German. Many filmmakers will be present and are more than happy to answer the children’s questions after the screenings. Two children’s juries each award an age-related prize.

Birthday Presents and Puberty at Mo&Friese

It’s Mo&Friese’s birthday! The Mo&Friese Children’s Short Film Festival Hamburg turns 15 years old this year. On this happy occasion, we will have a great number of surprises up our sleeves.  In addition to the seven international competition programmes for children and teens aged 4 to 14, there will be a spectacular opening ceremony featuring the most exciting children’s short films of the past 15 years. In addition, Mo&Friese will be touring Germany and German living rooms: the new short film reel – which will be screened at German cinemas from June on – will premier at the festival. Furthermore, there will be a new DVD available to take Mo&Friese home.

Don’t Trust Any Person Or Film Over 30 (Minutes).

FreeStyle: The Youth Programme of Mo&Friese and the Hamburg International Short Film Festival

We believe that the festival – despite being 15 years old – is still in its infancy; nonetheless, it is about time for a new venture. Since 1997, Mo&Friese has been showing children’s short films to 4- till 14-year-olds. This year, we want to raise the age range and – in accordance with the festival’s anniversary – present a programme to a 15+ audience.

The short film in particular – with its nonconformist eagerness to experiment – has a great deal to offer to adolescents. Two programme blocks will feature films which will appeal to teenagers, as they deal with topics such as first love or conflicts with parents, peers, or society at large. Simultaneously, they are introduced to both genres and worlds that teenagers most likely do not encounter in the daily media.

HIGH FIVE! Competition: Be Bold, Be Brave!

The HIGH FIVE! competition calls for creative young filmmakers who will mesmerize us with films based upon their personal experiences. This year’s topic runs: Be Bold, Be Brave!

Have you ever experienced a situation in which you were really brave? Did you maybe jump off a ten-meter diving board despite your fear of heights? Or, vice versa, have you ever been brave enough to say "no" when "yes" would have been the easy answer? Or would you like to tell us about a moment when bravery wasn't the best choice, or even called for at all?

However you may interpret our motto, we are very much looking forward to your ideas featured either in a short film, a short documentary or an animation film.

The short film for the HIGH FIVE! competition at the Mo&Friese Short Film Festival may be no more than five minutes in length and must be submitted by March 15th. Participants may not be older than 13 years: individuals, but also day-care groups and school classes etc. are welcome.

The top three films will not only be presented on the big screen at the 15th Mo&Friese Short Film Festival, but be rewarded with cash prizes as well.

For further details regarding the competition and the submission form, please visit our website: www.moundfriese.de