71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 29 April – 4 May 2025:
The Short Film Festival starts with four new series: Omnibus Films, Shoah Outtakes, Moles of the Archive and the Distributors' Collection
Like no other format, short film can combine political themes with new and unusual artistic forms. Throughout its history, the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival has consistently presented and discussed works that combine these two aspects, in which artistic and political concerns interpenetrate and mutually reinforce each other. The 71st Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, under the direction of Madeleine Bernstorff and Susannah Pollheim for the first time, presents three new, long-term series that address the topic from different perspectives, as well as a restructured showcase of international short film distributors.
New: Travel Companions – Omnibus Films in Film History
Historically, the omnibus film or episodic film represents the only way to exploit short films "regularly" as a full-length program and thus also commercially. But although the genre dates back to the 1930s and encompasses around 100 productions, it has largely lived a shadowy existence in film history. "Travel Companions," curated by journalist and curator Lukas Foerster, focuses on thematic, narrative, or production-technical key points of the genre. Where, when, and for whom did the omnibus film historically become an interesting form of presentation? What themes and interests does the genre serve? Under what conditions do these productions become a format that is also, but not only, commercially relevant? The series begins with feminist-based episodic films of the 1980s.
Under the title "Counter-Glances," the Short Film Festival presents West German episodic films from the 1980s by predominantly female directors, including Chantal Akerman, Maxi Cohen, Valie Export, Monika Funke Stern, Ebba Jahn, Ulrike Ottinger, Renate Sami, and Helke Sander. The program includes Out of the Blue (1982), Seven Women - Seven Sins (1986), The Memory Gap: Film Miniatures on the Daily Dealing with Poison (1983), and Ama Zone (1983).
New: What's Left – Moles of the Archive
What does it mean to be politically left-wing – and located in an archive? The film story begins with the end of a workday – la sortie de l'usine – and the surveillance of the proletariat, since it was the factory owners themselves, the Lumière brothers, who filmed the moment of separation between work and leisure. This symbolic origin forges an unbreakable bond between labor struggle and cinema. In this spirit, "What's Left" delves into the 16mm archive of the Short Film Festival to provide a space for films that ignited a spark of collective self-awareness and solidarity in women, workers, and students. Two programs, curated by Simon Petri-Lukács, present a selection of West German films that resonate with the spirit of 1968. These include For Women – Chapter 1 (Cristina Perincioli, 1971), We Can Only Help Ourselves (Gardi Deppe, 1974), Moles of the Revolution (Horst Schwaab, 1969) and From Revolt to Revolution (Filmmakers Cooperative Hamburg, Kurt Rosenthal, 1969).
New: The Making of Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah”
A workshop program, curated by Christoph Hesse, takes a close look at the outtakes from Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, illuminating the process of its conception and creation as a work of art. 210 hours of film, the entire filmed material, have recently been made accessible—previously unknown interviews, testimonies of rescue and resistance, and material that was not included in the film for legal reasons. To kick off the multi-year project, two programs will analyze excerpts: a long conversation with Inge Deutschkron, who survived the Holocaust in hiding in Berlin, and Lanzmann's attempt to film Heinz Schubert, a member of the so-called "Einsatzgruppen" (deployment groups) who used violence and legal means to prevent the material from being included in Shoah.
New: Distributors' Collection
This new format succeeds our Distributors' Screenings. International distributors of experimental short films will continue to present works from their catalogs. What's new is that the focus is no longer exclusively on new acquisitions; instead, the distributors will also present older, sometimes newly accessible works from their catalogs or archives. Participating for the first time are Arsenal (Germany), EYE Experimental (Netherlands), Filmform (Sweden), and sixpackfilm (Austria).
The accreditation deadline for the 71st International Short Film Festival is April 23, 2025.
Press contact:
International Short Film Festival, Sabine Niewalda, Grillostr. 34, 46045 Oberhausen, Tel. +49 (0)208 825-3073, E-Mail: niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de