Just as important as the competitions at the Short Film Festival is the extensive theme.

Today, the short film branches into a host of cross-genre forms that are not shown in cinemas, be it avant-garde, advertising or scientific films. The Short Film Festival presents this differentiated form of the short film in thematic contexts, thus creating a forum for social discussions which, although originating from the topic of short film, actually go far beyond filmrelated issues and lead to an all-encompassing dialogue on the ways and workings of film production in the arts, new technologies and science.

The theme in 2010:

From the Deep: The Great Experiment 1898-1918

Topics covered in recent years included "The Eye Of The Bomb" (1991), "Advertising Film" (1992), "HDTV" (1992), "Confrontation of Cultures" (1993), "Corporate Film Fascination" (1995), "Hyper Media" (1997), "Useful Images" (1998), "1968/98" (1998), "Cities, Territories" (1999), "Sex, Rock'n n'Roll and History" (2000), "Pop Unlimited?" (2000), "Out of Time" (2001), "Catastrophe" (2002), "re<lokal>isierung (2003), "A different History. 50 Years of Short Film in Oberhausen" (2004), "The Fallen Curtain. The Self and the Other Since 1989" (2005),"Radical Closure" (2006), "Kinomuseum" and "Don't turn around! Children, Childhood, Cinema (2007), "Bordercrossers and Troublemakers", Whose History" (2008) and "Unreal Asia" (2009).