BLINDE FLECKEN
Jury award and Award of the students‘ jury
Jury's laudation:
We are awarding the Jury Prize to a film that has already left a lasting impression on us during our first viewing and has literally tied us to the cinema seats during the second jury viewing.
The subject addressed is not only highly topical and the discourse on it necessary; it will certainly concern us even more intensively in the coming years.
The film is about power structures and the abuse of power within the film business / on the film set, and about the attempt to counteract them by creating a completely new job profile.
The startling incident is told in a strong and enormously dense plot with actors who convinced us in every situation.
STÖRENFRIEDA
Innovation award
Jury's laudation:
A provoking start: a feminist group that excludes men! This is how the film begins. Many a viewer may feel excluded.
But then the father of our female protagonist comes into the picture: easy-going, loud and affectionate, but politically incorrect in his remarks. A generational conflict and a social one collide.
Thanks to sensitive characterisation and convincing acting, the experiment of allowing extreme positions to be tested against real life succeeds. The end result is a broken mirror, but healed relationships.
Staged with humour and chutzpah, STÖRENFRIEDA by Alina Yklymova left us moved and sparked a lively discussion.
LAIKA & NEMO
Audience award DACHfilmzeit and Special mention of the jury
From the jury's statement:
A heart-warming story, impressively crafted, on a level that commands respect.
WARUM BEGEHT HELEN KOCH SCHWEREN KRAFTWAGENDIEBSTAHL?
Special mention of the jury
From the jury's statement:
A surprising film in plot points with strong female characters who find common grounds in an uncharacteristic way (almost a prequel to Thelma & Louise). The film opens up an abyss and culminates in a coup.
FREE FALL
Jury Award and Audience Award
Statement of the jury:
A real masterpiece of dramaturgy and suspense. Director Emmanuel Tenenbaum succeeds to show the brutal aspects of financial turbo-capitalism and the emotional consequences of its actions in a very sensitive way.
The fantastic acting performances give us the opportunity to experience the emotional waves of the main protagonist. The film is an exceptional commentary on 09/11 from a surprising point of view.
UN CŒUR D'OR
Special mention
Statement of the jury:
Special mention goes to a very personal story about the dangerous power of love. The perfect stop-motion animation has wide layers of topics like the confrontation between old and young, rich and poor, ill and healthy. Director Simon Filliot has chosen an original visualisation in an extremely poetic way. The audience gets a rare opportunity to reflect on the child's final decision long after the film has ended.
FLEDGE
Jury Award
In a very close race, the animated film FLEDGE – also outstanding in its craftsmanship – was able to fully convince the jury as a coming-of-age fairy tale. The parable moves the audience with an imaginative and poetic story about identity, about "taking root" in the truest sense of the word. It is about tradition and the present age, about migration, foreign cultures and the exclusion of strangers. Thus the theme of the competition – home – is addressed convincingly and on multiple levels.
HOAMWEH LUNG
Special Mention
Felix Klee's film succeeds in approaching the vanished places of childhood with their favourite animals and secret hiding places in a visually unusual way and with the means of the digital age in a very personal way.
His message: homes disappear and yet live on in our hearts in a strange way.
YOU CAN’T SHOW MY FACE
Jury Award and Audience Award
Statement of the jury:
"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
... the French writer Victor Hugo once said. And now there is a short film about it.
Other countries, other customs. Understandably, what unites them, or what should unite them, is a commitment to freedom and humanity.
The Iranian short film YOU CAN'T SHOW MY FACE shows the vibrant, lively city of Tehran from the perspective of young people. The natural act of singing and dancing is forbidden here.
The gawkers, the watchers, the silent, the curious are unmasked and visible. The young musicians who record the noises, sounds and rhythms of the pulsating metropolis, on the other hand, are masked, hooded – invisible. Their weapons: Microphone, pen, paper, wit and voice. Their message: Don’t be quiet! Shout from your heart.
YOU CAN’T SHOW MY FACE: A captivating short film in which music carries the fundamental values of freedom and autonomy, which uses a rebellious and contemporary visual style, and exposes and documents an intimate side of society. From Tehran for Iran and the whole world.
The jury's decision was unanimous.
SUNSET SINGERS
Special mention
Statement of the jury:
A very touching animated film, with a remarkable visual style and social significance, where music and singing underpin a historical moment of uprising and ask for the people's voices to be heard.
MONDO DOMINO
Special mention
Statement of the jury:
An excellent example of the interdependence between all living things. We are all connected by nature and the domino effect must be stopped. A peculiar rendition of Ravel's Boléro, used in a stunning way, drives the story about the self-destructive capitalism of human society.
PROLL!
Three people in the low-wage sector struggle against their lack of prospects. They are all working within the online retail supply chain. The intense sound design (often the soundscape of the next scene begins at the end of the previous one) underlines the connection of the individual fates.
Surreal-looking shots of sheep are woven into the storylines. The animals – or rather their image – is probably also the answer to the question of rebellion against the circumstances.
OVERHEIM
Strictly speaking, the film goes beyond the genre of documentary. It has narrative and experimental elements. We climb into a floating tank with Martine Nicole Rojina, an interdisciplinary media artist, and embark with her on an inner journey into space.
Huge structures, built by man to reach into the distance, are shown in meditative atmospheric images.
The underlying sounds as well as the narrative tempo are reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky and his form of science fiction, which seeks "out there" not something alien but a connection to ourselves.
