[Reader-list] The Competitions 2011

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

57th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 5-10 May 2011
     
Accreditation deadline: 11 April 2011
Accreditation: http://www.kurzfilmtage.de/en/accreditation.html
 
The competitions
 
A list of all films selected for the competitions is online at: 
http://www.kurzfilmtage.de/en/competitions/selection.html               

                                                  
Out of over 5,800 submissions, the 57th International Short Film 
Festival Oberhausen has chosen 141 works to present in its 
competitions. Productions from 40 different countries will vie for 
prizes worth a total of 41,000 euros. Overall, 470 short films will be 
on view in Oberhausen's competitions and special programmes.
 
Figures:
total number of films in the festival: 466
total number of films in competition: 141 from 40 countries
total number of submissions: 5.865 films from 96 countries
 
Festival director Lars Henrik Gass commented with satisfaction on the 
competition nominees: "This year we received films from 96 countries. 
We can with some justification claim that, in this incredible mass of 
films, we are witnessing something like a global reality - one that is 
also reflected in the competition programmes. We often see works that 
seem to have come about spontaneously, manifesting a very individual 
point of view. The catchword 'global' definitely fits here, because 
today - not least thanks to the internet - we are able to share in 
these other perspectives on the world."
 
 
International Competition
Looking beyond Europe
 
With 60 works on view, the International Competition is both 
Oberhausen's largest and oldest competition. Productions from 40 
countries, selected from over 4,300 submissions, compete for award 
money in the amount of 24,500 euros. This year, an unusually large 
number of titles come from non-European countries: films from 
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are featured, works from South 
Africa and Uganda, co-productions from Samoa, Malaysia and Birma, and 
two films from Vietnam. The International Competition offers festival 
visitors the rare opportunity to get to know film-production countries 
that have a hard time finding their way onto the international market 
or to which, conversely, access from outside can often be difficult. 
With nine films in the competition, the USA however still upholds its 
traditional ranking as best-represented country.
 
On 6 May, ARTE will broadcast a special episode of its "Kurzschluss" 
show devoted to a selection of films from the International Competition 
at Oberhausen.
 
Jury for the International Competition
Branka Bencic, author/curator (Zagreb)
Michael Glawogger, filmmaker (Vienna)
William E. Jones, filmmaker/curator (Los Angeles)
Joan Legalamitlwa, curator (Cape Town)
Sari Volanen, commissioning editor of YLE (Helsinki)
 
 
 
German Competition
Politics and the people
 
German short films have been the focus of their own competition at 
Oberhausen since 1991. For the 2011 festival, over 1,350 films were 
submitted. Of these, 20 productions are in the running for prizes 
totalling 7,500 euros, and one of them - Bjørn Melhus's I'm Not the 
Enemy - is also in the International Competition. "How does so-called 
'big politics' affect private lives?" - This is the question that 
dominates many films, asked and answered by their makers in a myriad of 
highly individual and diverse ways, whether in Bjørn Melhus's 
experimental work about soldiers returning from war, in Phil Collins's 
documentary marxism today (prologue), in which women tell of their 
lives before and after German reunification, or in Andree Korpys's and 
Markus Löffler's Atom, which takes a new look at events on the 
sidelines of an anti-nuclear demonstration.
 
On 11 May, 3sat will broadcast a special featuring a selection of films 
from this year's German Competition.
 
Jury for the German Competition
Markus Ambach, artist/curator (Düsseldorf)
Esther Buss, author (Berlin)
Dore O., filmmaker (Mülheim an der Ruhr)
 
 
 
NRW Competition
German "Heimatfilme"
 
Inaugurated in 2009 and hence the youngest competition at Oberhausen, 
the NRW Competition will present this year 12 productions from the 
German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, competing for prizes in the 
amount of 1,500 euros. All works submitted from North Rhine-Westphalia 
were considered for this competition, a total of some 250 films. As 
this accounts for nearly one fifth of all German entries, the NRW 
Competition spotlights one of Germany's most prolific and successful 
regions for film production. Filmmakers from Cologne, Dortmund and 
Mülheim an der Ruhr are taking part in 2011, among them Rainer Komers, 
a winner of the German Film Award. The focus this year is on NRW not 
only as production location but also as setting: "What is it like to 
live here?" the films ask, and turn up some answers at traditional 
marksmanship festivals, in multicultural allotment gardens or along the 
renaturated Seseke River.
 
With support from the NRW.BANK
 
Jury for the NRW Competition
Gabi Hinderberger, Blicke. Filmfestival des Ruhrgebiets (Bochum)
Ute Mader, Kommunales Kino Leverkusen
Dirk Steinkühler, Filmpalette cinema (Cologne)
 
 
 
The 13th MuVi Award for best German music video
The shortest MuVi ever
 
In 1999 Oberhausen was the first film festival in the world to 
introduce a music video prize awarded to a director for the best 
visualisation of a piece of music. Ten clips have been chosen for the 
13th edition. With four clips of three or less minutes in length, and a 
total length of just 40 minutes, this is the shortest MuVi Award of all 
time. In this 13th MuVi Award, a new generation of filmmakers comes to 
the fore: seven of the nine clips were made by directors who have never 
been shown clips in Oberhausen. And we can still say today that: music 
television may be dead, but the video clip lives on, attracting a 
steady stream of young talent.
 
 From 6 April to 6 May, viewers can stream the clips online so they can 
cast their vote for the MuVi Online Audience Award. Votes can be 
submitted at: www.muvipreis.de                              , 
www.intro.de, http://creative.arte.tv  , www.tape.tv, www.byte.fm or 
www.3sat.de.
 
MuVi jury
Jens Balzer, author (Berlin)
Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, artist (Reykjavik)
Phoenix Perry, artist (New York)
 
 
Press photos in print-ready quality are available for download in the 
Press section on www.kurzfilmtage.de.
 
 
Oberhausen, 30 March 2011
 
Press contact:
Sabine Niewalda, tel +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda at kurzfilmtage.de