Website about Oberhausen Manifesto now online

The bilingual (German/English) website www.oberhausener-manifest.com of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen went online on 16 January 2012. The occasion is the 50th anniversary of the Oberhausen Manifesto on 28 February 2012. The website provides information on the 26 signatories, film clips, interviews with such contemporaries as Hilmar Hoffmann or Peter Berling, a photo-gallery, a programme of events to celebrate the jubilee, a specially produced internet soap “That Oberhausen Feeling” (“Das Oberhausener Gefühl”) by Max Linz, and much more. It is part of the “Provoking Reality” project established by the Festival to accompany the jubilee.

The Oberhausen Manifesto, unquestionably the most important group document of German cinema, whose publication celebrates its 50th anniversary on 28 February 2012, is among the most famous and, at the same time, least known chapters of German film history. There are as many versions circulating about the circumstances behind its proclamation as, for example, about the origin of the slogan “Daddy’s cinema is dead“ (“Papas Kino ist tot”); the films made by the 26 signatories in their most active period (1958-67) have to this day never been systematically collected or preserved. With “Provoking Reality”, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen intends to address this issue during the jubilee year. The website www.oberhausener-manifest.com will thus be providing information and photos.

It will also ask what has remained of the new beginnings and what relevance the manifesto can have today. A first foretaste will be given by Max Linz's series “That Oberhausen Feeling” (“Das Oberhausener Gefühl”) to be launched on www.oberhausener-manifest.com on 21 February. Recordings and extracts of discussions and symposia on the Oberhausen Manifesto will be gradually added during the jubilee year.

“Provoking Reality” is supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

The website's partners are www.filmportal.de and Arte Creative (http://creative.arte.tv/de).

www.oberhausener-manifest.com

Oberhausen, 16 January 2012

Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, Tel. +49 (0)208 825-3073,
niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de