Special Programmes

Country Focus: Romania

The Romanian cinema is profiting from the creativity of its young directors while films from Romania are winning awards in Cannes or Berlin. However, our programme does not solely focus on this new generation of filmmakers. It will give an overview of the Romanian short film industry from the 1930s, when Bucharest was still considered to be the “Paris of the East”, to today. We were able to unearth a few ethnographic films that had never been shown in Germany before and which uncover a documentary vanguard.

A Kosovan Suitcase

Europe’s youngest nation is carrying at least one suitcase full of old wounds into its future. In five short films, young directors will throw a light on different aspects of daily life in Kosovo: from comical and lovable misunderstandings, the painful relationship with the Serbian language to society’s pressures and ambivalent national identities.

Koffer Kosova – Lecture by Mehmet Behluli

Urban Sounds

Super-8 films are convenient vehicles for journeys back in time. “Urban Sounds” are substandard film from the 70s, portraying metropolises such as London, Paris, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro or New York in sequences of two to three minutes. At the turn of the millennia, Ian Helliwell initiated several musicians to expand the existing material with electronic sounds and atmospheres. The second part of the programme takes the opposite way by translating the compositions of vanguard artists such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel and others into moving images.

Friendships, Freaks and Fanatism

Homo Sapiens is a rather pathetic creature. We are weaker than gorillas, slower than cheetahs and our jaws are hardly sufficient to tear out the throat of some unsuspecting prey. In short: In comparison, we probably suck. And our fabled intelligence is rather overrated, as well. No, the thing that makes us strong is our tendency to form into groups! And this is what this special programme is all about.

Arnold Hau Group

For once, a comparison with the grandmasters of British humour is fully justified. The artificial character Arnold Haus has both the anarchic element and the bizarre humour of Monty Python. 30 years after their conception, the low budget films of the artist collective around F.K. Waechter, Robert Gernhardt, Bernd Eilert and Arend Agthe are still hitting the mark of German sensitivities.

20th Anniversary oF the Hamburg International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The Hamburg International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival will celebrate its 20th anniversary from 20 October to 25 October. This is more than enough to justify at the 6th of June an evening of looking back at those 20 years with a freaky, funny and entertaining programme at Metropolis, where the festival was created in 1990. Award winners and audience’s favourites are all part of the package, of course.

Budding Talents – Juvenile Films

Making its debut at the festival, this programme will target a youthful audience. So far, there had always been a gap between the kids of the Mo&Friese Festival and the grown ups from the ISFF. Now young curators from the Gymnasium Ohmoor are going to fill this gap with their own selection of films. And what happens when the young ones pick up cameras themselves? You can find out by looking at examples from the Short Film School, a project of the KFA.

Award Winning Films From 25 Years of Festival History

It’s remembrance time and we will illustrate a quarter of a century of festival films in three programmes chock full of films awarded by juries and audiences alike. These all time favourites will leave nothing to be desired. All winners, all the time – this we guarantee.