A week packed with 400 short films ended on monday June 11th in Hamburg. The 23rd International Short Film Festival screened 220 of 3800 submitted short films in the the competitive categories and a further 180 films in non-competitive special programmes . Overall more than 30.000 euros of prize-money were poured out. Apart from a large number of accreditated guests and a high number of interesting films it was espcially the subtropical climate that shaped this year's festival. No wonder that 800 people gathered together at our open air event A Wall is a Screen. See you all next June again!

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Jury: Anna Berger, Carol Mansour, Erik Hemmendorff, Veton Nurkollari, Philip Ilson

JURY AWARD: 3.000 EUROS

LAMPA CU CACIULA THE TUBE WITH A HAT, Radu Jude, Rumänien 2006, 23:20 min, short fiction
Jury substantiation:
A slice of life from 21st century Europe, a million miles from our own hi-tech worlds of TV-on-demand and X-Box games, where a broken black & white television is at the centre of a young boy's life. The image of a father and son tramping across a muddy field in the morning half-light while carrying the family television sums up the simplicity of the drama from this basic premise.


FRANÇOIS ODE AWARD: 1.500 EUROS

BARE, Santana Issar, India 2006, 11:00 min, documentary

Jury substantiation
By using only telephone conversations and old home movies, Santana Issar has created an intimate and unsentimental family drama about a father's alcholism from a daughter's point of view. The jury was moved by the honesty of the characters' reasoning about past and future, family and responsibilities.

SPECIAL MENTION:
LA LEÇON DE GUITARE THE GUITAR LESSON, Martin Rit, France 2006, 17:42 min., short fiction.

SOFT Simon Ellis, England 2006, 14:06 min., short fiction.

SKODA AUDIENCE AWARD: 750 EUROS EACH (EX AEQUO)

LA LEÇON DE GUITARE THE GUITAR LESSON, Martin Rit, France 2006, 17:42 min. short fiction.
SOFT , Simon Ellis, England 2006, 14:06 min, short fiction.

NO BUDGET COMPETITION
Jury: Oliver Baumgarten, Peter van Hoof, Dana Levy

JURY AWARD: 2.000 EUROS
THIS IS MY LAND, Ben Rivers, England 2005, 14:00 min., documentary.

Jury substantiation:
This film is a poetic humanistic portrait which serves as a window into another pace of living. The film's soundtrack is just as precise and beautifully crafted as it is imagery.

SPECIAL MENTION:
HAIRLADY David Birdsell, Canada/USA 2006, 8:12 min., experimental short fiction.

AUDIENCE AWARD: 1.500 EUROS
THANKS ANYWAY , Mischa Leinkauf / Matthias Wermke, Germany 2006, 6:30 Min., experimental documentary.

GERMAN COMPETITION
Jury: Filomeno Fusco, Markus Prasse, Christiane Müller-Lobeck

PILSNER URQUELL INNOVATION AWARD 2007 FOR A GERMAN SHORT FILM: 2.000 EUROS

IN A GOOD POSITION, Nancy Brandt, Germany 2006, 13:36 min., documentary.

Jury substantiation
Through its surprisingly clear concept and the consistently applied simple aesthetic means, this unusual documentary tells the story of a council estate. At the same time, the film grants us a glance of the sensitive multicultural microcosm of its inhabitants and theanimosities between them. "In a Good Position" achieves this with consistence, a down-to-earth perspective and without being
schoolmasterly.

SPECIAL MENTION:
POOLSIDE, Michael Koch, Germany/ Switzerland 2006, 19:35 Min., Short Fiction


AUDIENCE AWARD - NATURAL AMERICAN SPIRIT: 1.500 EUROS

HILDA & KARL, Toke Constantin Hebbeln, Germany 2006, 13:00 min., Short Fiction.

JURY PRIZE OF THE HAMBURG CULTURAL FOUNDATION: 2.000 EUROS

HOW I BECAME A FREELANCE TRAVEL GUIDE, Jan Peters, Germany 2007, 15:37 min., staged documentary.

Jury substantiation:
This beautifully absurd film on precarious working conditions in Germany impressed the jury with its individual and unconventional style. The filmmaker effortlessly combines the diverse genres of drama, documentary and experimental film. The result is a successful satire, which not only exaggerates the new realities of work, but also examines them seriously and thoroughly.

SPECIAL MENTION:
NIGHTSHADE, Sabine Höpfner, Germany 2007, 7:40 Min., experimental animation

AUDIENCE AWARD OF THE HAMBURG CULTURAL FOUNDATION: 1.500 EUROS

HOW I BECAME A FREELANCE TRAVEL GUIDE, Jan Peters, Germany 2007, 15:37 min., staged documentary.


THREE-MINUTE QUICKIE COMPETITION: AUDIENCE AWARD: 1.000 EUROS

HOMEWORK Fabian Möhrke, Germany 2005, 1:47 Min., Experimental documentary.

MO&FRIESE CHILDREN'S SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

FRIESE-AWARD: 1.250 EUROS (Children's Jury between 8 and 10 years)

LITTLE MAN, Esben Tonnesen, Germany 2006, 13:00 min. ,short fiction

Jury substaantiation:
We chose the film "Little Man" from Denmark because we really liked the idea behind it. Mathias' enquiries into what girls are likeare hilariously depicted. We were also veryimpressed with the surprise ending.

MO-AWARD: 1.250 EUROS (Children's Jury between 11 and 13 years)

THE WRONG TRAINERS, Kez Margrie, England 2006, 15:00 Min., Computer animation.

Jury substaantiation:
Ours was a very tough decision to make because we had initially shortlisted a number of films for this award. In the end, we decided to award the Mo Prize to the makers of the documentary “The Wrong Trainers." We were very fascinated by this film and found it very enlightening and insightful. It is lovingly done and the soundtrack matches the documentary well. It was also very interesting to see how different children deal with their life situations.

SPECIAL MENTION:

THE SILENCE BETWEEN US, Katie O'Neill, Australia 2006, 7:14 min., short fiction

HIGH FIVE! SHORT FILM COMPETITION for Kids:
1st PRIZE: THE JOB OF MY DREAMS, Luis Arndt, Vincent Delius, Mirco Erichsen, Sebastian Pinzke, Oliver Zurhelle, Germany 2006, 6:10 min., short fiction.

Jury substaantiation:
The Mo and Friese Jury has chosen to award the first prize to this film because it is very varied and interesting. The first prize, which is endowed with 300 EUR goes to the makers of the film "The job of my dreams",

2nd PRIZE: BOUNCER - MY DREAM JOB, Copernicus grammar school's video group
,Germany 2007, 5:30 Min., short fiction.
Jury substantiation:
The second award in this competition goes to the film "Bouncer - My Dream Job" by the Copernicus grammar school's video group. We thought it was a very funny idea to make an instruction video for bouncers. But the best thing was that the bouncer was so convincingly played by a girl.

3.rd PRIZE: CARL THE POSTMAN Thomas Fischer, Germany 2007, 7:29 Min., Animationsfilm

Jury substantiation:
The 3rd prize in the "High Five" competition goes to the film "Carl the Postman" by the 6th form of the Max Slevogt grammar school in Landau. We really liked the story of Postman Carl and the way it was presented in clay animation.

ARTE SHORT FILM AWARD: 6.000 Euros
Acquisition of the film and broadcast as part of arte's short film programme)
Jury: Mado Le Fur

MAMMAL, Astrid Rieger, Germany 2006, 7:25 Min., Short fiction
Jury substatniation:
Through intelligent editing, the filmmaker takes us to a world in which reality and fantasy constantly alternate. This change of narrative levels reflects a relationship between a mother and her son and the development of this relationship. The actors' contained interpretation of their characters as well as the absence of dialogue serve to highlight the films' subject.

ZDF DOKUKANAL - BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: 2.000 Euros
(Acquisition of the film and broadcast on ZDFdokukanal)
Jury: Angelika Hoffmann, Andrea Windisch

IN A GOOD POSITION, Nancy Brandt, Germany 2006, 13:36 Min., Documentary
In her documentary, filmmaker Nancy Brandt grants us some unusual glances into the iving rooms of a Munich council estate. We are shown a multicultural society whose members have one main thing in common: they share the same roof over their heads. The
camera's circular movement creates a stark contrast to the still lives the estate's inhabitants form. The film's plot, cinematography, editing and montage combine to form a highly successful and multi-faceted snapshot which manages to capture the entire microcosm of a tower block in just 13 minutes of film.

MUSIC IN SHORTS AWARD: 2.000 EUROS EACH
This prize presented by RockCity Hamburg e.V. and funded by the GEMA-Foundation is dedicated to the best original soundtrack.

Jury: Ricardo Cortez, Corinna Dästner, Andrea Rothaug

international
I, Luke Losey, England 2006, 1:30 min., experimental film

Jury Substantiation:

"I" by Luke Losey is a film in which images and sound literally see eye to eye. Only the sounds and noises created by sound designer Tim Harrisson enable the audience to enter the film's associative spaces. The film playfully conjures up a combination of assumed key stimuli and an atmospheric sound collage.

National

OSMOTIC, Jan Verbeek, Germany/South Korea 2006, 3:03 Min., experimental documentary

Jan Verbeek, who is both the director and the composer of the winning film, manages to give the soundtrack its own voice on several levels. While the sondtrack adds a character of equal importance to the film's imagery, the cross fading and combination with the original sound adds another interesting aspect to its narrative: the alternation between the two levels of sound masterfully stages the parking attendant's dancing conduction, which oscilllates between a dreamlike irreality and an almost documentary wakefulness.