Please note that this is a rough translation used to assist the interpreters on opening night!

Dr. Lars Henrik Gass,

Festival director International Short Film Festival Oberhausen:Speech at the opening of the 50th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen,29 April 2004, Gasometer, OberhausenBlocking period: 29 April 2004, 8 p.m.The spoken word applies--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,Prime Minister of the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia,Minister Vesper,Minister Höhn,Lord Mayor,Ladies and Gentlemen,Guests and Friends!This festival has turned 50 because of its historical substance, which differentiates "Oberhausen" - the festival called by the name of its city - from all other festivals. But this substance is not so much connected with certain values, but derives from something that forms the Festival's practice, which has been cultivated and advanced, independent of its directors, independent, too, of vogues, in spite of all attempts to influence it politically, something that has lived on through the years like the individual sound of an orchestra. I think it is its uncompromising commitment to innovation. Others might have more stars to offer, but only a few have given cinema more authors who became stars later on.The importance of this festival cannot be explained solely in terms of any particular event that has taken place here, whether this be the Oberhausen manifesto in 1962 or the protests of 1968 - it is constantly reaffirmed owing to its extremely undogmatic concept of short film. This festival cannot be made into anything other than what its substance allows: no festival for popular, already accepted and established films, no festival for political messages or documentary information, but neither one for experimental film; for all this festival has ever aimed to do is to present alternatives to existing realities. This is not something for which you will always be loved. always be understood. And, both in Oberhausen and the world at large, you will not always be judged on an equal basis for the work you do.For us paying critical tribute to fifty years of its work, without anthems and trumpets, also means a demythologization of "Oberhausen", which is hard to imagine without the Ruhr Area and the 1950's approaches marked by educational policy, a festival that gave rise to many misunderstandings and prejudices, that everybody knows, and that only a few have ever visited, which everyone has something to say about, and only a few more than that. For this reason we have decided to publish a book at Hatje Cantz with the title "kurz und klein", which because of the many different viewpoints it contains, conveys a more complex picture of the Festival's history than has been or could be given before. The retrospective that we are going to present is devoted more to the Festval's themes than to now-famous names. And the special evening of programmes that ARTE is presenting for the Festival's anniversary, is not a "birthday bouquet", but a complex examination of the short form, which many have already declared dead but which, judging by the number of entries that festivals worldwide receive - this year, in Oberhausen alone, there were more than 5,000 for the first time - is in fact very much alive and well."Oberhausen" has not survived as a relict of the fifties, not as a museum of a dead film genre, but as a place full of life, as a laboratory of cinema. No doubt, short film - presenting itself today and above all in a variety of digital formats - has hardly gained visibility since the fifties. But please do not believe that it has ever had a golden age. In 1960, Oberhausen counted 480 entries from 32 countries, and 122 films from 21 countries were shown. 40 years later the number had grown to 3,400 entries from 89 countries, of which 132 works from 33 countries were shown, that is to say, far more films and countries.In the past, short film was not more important than today, just because it was screened in the cinema before there was advertising, and where people much rather had a cigarette or kissed their boy or girlfriends. No, today short film is - free from the constraints of this so-called "cultural film" - much more relevant because it has become richer.And the fact that Oberhausen is no longer alone is due to the fact that in 1954 Germany had three film festivals and no television, and everybody was asking for culture and miracles. Today, there are far more than 60 festivals in Germany, and maybe 1,500 worldwide, and the fight for public attention is vicious.Historically speaking, though, exactly the loss of this monopoly has been necessary and fruitful for Oberhausen. That's how it became possible to turn the festival into something that does not stand for everything and everyone, but exactly for this: the new. Oberhausen has become a trademark.We hear quite often that short film is but a phenomenon of festivals and art exhibitions. You all are familiar with the allegation of the ivory tower. A cinema, however, that does not promote the fringes, that admits only the well-established, that sees short film as a business card not as a creative matter, such a cinema will stand in the way of its own innovation. In this sense, the preparations for our anniversary have made us realize a few limitations, too. We thought it might be possible to grasp the present and the meaning of Oberhausen retrospectively through now-famous names. We thought the Festival's history would bring this rather non-visible, rather non-glamorous part of cinema back to the attention of the media and the film industry. Admittedly, a rather naive thought. Oberhausen has done a lot for short film and the cinema, but Oberhausen has never believed in the past, always in the future.These days, short film has found an appropriate forum in film festivals and art exhibitions, both culturally and economically. Short film survives and prospers although it is very hard to sell. - I can only explain this with the multiplication and the change of the festival. Here, cinema regenerates itself through encounter; here, a social discussion space emerges, a space that is generally in danger of disappearing due to television and the individualization connected to it. Festivals are economical because they represent an investment in the future - of cinema, which on a European level is losing already several percents a year. We need to counteract the conformity of cinema and television with a pleasurable, physical and social space. The culturalization of film festivals characterizes a fundamental change in the meaning of the festivals themselves: today, festivals replace the platforms for critical examination of film and society that used to exist elsewhere. They are no longer a market place; they are residues of communication; they are the cinema's heirs. If we show films at our festivals, we do so in order to re-establish, in an almost emphatic manner, an exclusive space for social communication, not as part of a marketing measure for films that within a week will show in all cinemas, anyhow.In view of the large number of festivals, it has become almost impossible to run a festival on premieres alone, it has no point, either. Our aim should therefore be to create many little Bayreuths, places where a dissident form of communication is possible. A festival does not have to be "good"; it has to function, it has to be livelier, more creative, and maybe even more speculative than its environment. It has to be difficult, as difficult as the world that we are surrounded by. It does not have to be comprehensible, it has to have a question ready for us; it must not leave us indifferent, even if it runs the risk of becoming unacceptable - though, not as a bad compromise, not as a cover-up, but as an unfinished business. So, this is not about "good" or "bad" films - we will never agree on those - it is about the question whether a festival can reflect social problems and visualize virulent conflicts.In this sense, the Festival's old motto "Way to the Neighbour" has become somewhat obsolete. And we have been applying it rather jokingly in a slightly varied form, i.e. "Away from the Neighbour". Today, where the world is full of cultural and religious conflicts that have come about as a reaction against globalization and one-sided cultural and economic monopolization, the "Way to the Neighbour" can no longer live up to reality. The way has at least to consider the otherness of the other, maybe also as an otherness that wants to be considered in terms of resistance, - the neighbour as the wrong track. For this reason, we have long ago seized to dedicate programmes to the old national states. And last year, when we made a declaration against the war in Iraq - the reasons for which seem so overtly wrong today - by explicitly not inviting those responsible for this wrong war, we insisted on the fact that the "Way to the Neighbour" has to signify respect for another way; we also insisted on the fact that culture must not make itself the helpmate of such warmongering politics. The public debate that followed, the political pressure, that came from many sides, the liberals ahead, at that time in Germany, was out of proportion and made many forget where the actual frontline was situated, that the shooting was going on in Baghdad not in Oberhausen.Meanwhile, Oberhausen has never been a political festival; it was political because die circumstances called for it. If I had to choose a new motto for Oberhausen today, I would choose Robert Walser's sentence from "Mikrogramme": "Lack of courage is a bad pre-condition for any kind of work."I should like to thank all those who have made this festival possible and who work to ensure its further existence.