Distribution

All the world's a selfie and everyone's a troll. 

"16mm Selfie" was made entirely using 16mm film footage from the 1950's, found in forgotten storages in Mumbai's thieves market.

In 1998, filmmaker Barbara Hammer had a filmmaking residency without water or electricity.  In 2018, Barbara began her own process of dying. She gave her material from the residency to Lynne Sachs who explored Barbara’s experience of solitude. Lynne places text on the screen as a confrontation with a somatic cinema, bringing us all together in multiple spaces and times.

The Ladies eat, the gentlemen beat.

A short study of the interior of amaryllis flowers, shot on 16mm film. The central pistol, the stamens and the anthers, which produce the yellow pollen, are set against the colour field of the petals.

An essay film that studies what being at home means. The filmmaker uses photographs, maps and Google Earth to connect places around the globe from her own past and from the complex migratory history of her family, that stretches back to Hitler-era Germany and Mao's China. Reality and the virtual prove equally confusing: as much as you zoom in, you never get closer to home.

Greece 1986-1987, a little before the fall of State Socialism and just at the end of the Cold War. In front of Anthi’s eyes the country is changing, the world is changing and with them Christos seems to be changing too.

Sohrab Hura focuses on intimate family life, particularly the relationship between his mother who was diagnosed with acute Paranoid Schizophrenia and her dog, Elsa. What began as a way to escape his family situation turned into a method of confronting the realities at home. Photographed and filmed over a period of ten years, it is a search for meaning and closure with Hura questioning and discovering the banalities of everyday life at home.

RIP Nip$ey

RIP Prodigy 

Hip hop on the front line in the dumpland territories. Thoughts of murderous vengeance dangling in a sun savoury rot. (The hottest on the west.) The Digital Sickness defecates analogue flesh for the consumption of the bourgeoisie. Tastes like syrup and uprooted hair, flickering with nausea.

https://thedigitalsickness.bandcamp.com/

The first cracks in the otherwise sedate everyday routine of the Chico Crew.

As the lyrics and music already tell us, this is about fragments of memory. The video reflects growing up and everyday life in West Germany before the Wall came down. VHS and Super 8 material from the 70s and 80s is juxtaposed with present-day footage of band members and old companions, sometimes in split screen. We see typical surroundings and architecture from this era, almost-forgotten dances of various subcultures and remnants of all this in the present day.

Some days she imagines that by her sheer will she can make body parts fall off of people who seem vicious to her. And some other days everyone around her looks beautiful. And when she was little, she wished that flowers would grow out of her footprints.

In August 1984 a house inhabited by migrant workers was burnt down in Duisburg, killing seven members of a family. While the police immediately ruled out racism as a reason, the survivors continue to doubt that it was a coincidence that their house was set on fire.

In 1982, the eruption of a volcano called Chichonal forced the Zoque community to relocate. Filmed over the course of six years, (((((/*\))))) captures the unique atmosphere of the Indigenous group’s Chiapas village. Gradually, political themes come to the surface. 

CLIMBER: “In us: the last bytes of humanity and duty, to keep them alive for those that come after us.” EURYDICE: “Climb! Don't turn round!” - “Stay at the bottom! I'll go out, the air is thin ...” – she laughs: “... and green, colour that makes assertions” – “Black blurring, flight of birds” – “Reality that we constantly concoct in the studio.”

On a summer day the animals in the forest are invited to a party. They eat lots of cake and dance all night. When the party is over and they head back to their homes, they encounter a desolate landscape: there are no more trees to find food and refuge. Strange Creatures have stolen their homes.

A young woman is losing her epilepsy. Lucky — you would think.
 The last days before the summer vacation begin. As before, she spends them with her friends at school.  She is supposed to say goodbye to her illness as well as to the shared familiar place.
 

Rumors are spreading. It is said that Giovanni's mother is a bad person. Is she a liar, a whore? He is rejected in his own Palermo neighbourhood and wanders under the judgmental gaze of friends, children, elders and crazy men. A silent turtle for sole consolation, he walks in circles.

Within this community, where life goes on as usual, through these ordinary, common and sincere individual experiences, and phases of life, how can we build a society of the self, to examine the current singular and enduring modes of thinking? How to influence the space of people’s existence and communication in a long-term way within the socio-political and economic structures?

Like talking toy animals, we sit there and speak, every day. We speak “copy-and-paste” language. We don't know yet what we will have said. In the “Istanbul”, it's risky — like being on a Scarface film trip. It can work, it can fail, just like maintaining the role.

What would happen if one were to dissolve the ironclad construct of levelled-out and monotonous personality, i.e. the “I” that prevails in society? The  various views seen here are experiments about the absurd: introspection through the intuitive reworking of one's own photo, re-individualisation of the conformist personality.

Junkerhaus is shot in the residence of Karl Junker (1850 -1912) who dedicated his life to building his house in Lemgo, Germany. Reflections, projections and changes in light form abstract shapes which animate surfaces and structures, producing a psychological portrait that offers a new appreciation of Junker’s architecture as a mystical and visionary experience.

Dietrich Brüggemann, born in 1976, is a German film director, screenwriter and musician. Numerous music videos in Oberhausen, this year with "Kunst" in the MuVi Award.

Alex Gerbaulet, *1977, lives and works as an artist, filmmaker and curator in Berlin. Last work in Oberhausen: „Depth of Field“ (2017).

Kerstin Honeit studied fine arts and stage design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. Since 2014 she has been teaching at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Last work in Oberhausen: "PANDA MOONWALK or WHY MENG MENG WALKS BACKWARDS" (2018).

Judith Hopf (* 1969 in Karlsruhe) is a German artist. She teaches as a professor for free art at the Frankfurt Städelschule. Last film in Oberhausen: "Out" (2018).

Kristina Kilian is currently studying at the University of Television and Film Munich and won the 3sat sponsorship award in Oberhausen in 2019 for her short film "Which Way to The West".

Korpys/Löffler is the German artist duo Andree Korpys (* 1966 in Bremen) and Markus Löffler (* 1963 in Bremen). The filmmakers are lecturers at the University of the Arts Bremen. Last film in Oberhausen: "Gesang der Jünglinge" (2010).

Brenda Lien (* 1995) works as an independent filmmaker and composer. Her works have been shown at renowned film festivals worldwide. Last film in Oberhausen: "Call of Comfort" (2018).

Franz Müller (* 1965 in Mosbach) is a German director and scriptwriter, and also works as co-editor of the film magazine "Revolver". Most recently he showed his short film "Ordinary Seaman" (2010) in Oberhausen.

Jens Pecho (* 1978 in Frankfurt am Main) is a contemporary German artist. Last film in Oberhausen: "RGB" (2019).

Andreas Reihse is an artist and musician and one of the founding members of the Kreidler music group. He also appears as an author and in changing roles in film, performance and theatre projects.

Zaza Rusadze is a filmmaker living in Berlin. He also works as a video artist for theatre productions, most recently in Hamburg and Vienna, and is about to complete his first novel.

Jovana Reisinger (* 1989 in Munich) is a German author and filmmaker. Last film in Oberhausen: "sad boyz get high" (2018).

Upright video of a mobile phone that is filming a band and turning it into art.

The social imaginary of an utopian landscape through the voices who inhabit it.

Arístides died of a gunshot when he was 19 years old, while he was doing his Military Service in the Cuban Navy. He was shot in the chest at close range by the soldier who was supposed to relieve him in duty, with a Makarov PM handgun made in USSR. There are no images of him; just a letter he wrote to his sister a few hours before dying, whose reply never came to be.

A story about several hours, which significantly change the adolescent boy's life. In a small town in Latvia, there is an old Ferris wheel near a bar, in which the protagonist meets a female truck driver, and soon the wheel of fate of the adolescent boy is set in motion.

Dichotomies of the world are not something of Christianity itself, but were formed later, from the early church fathers. This extended through institutionalization, the arrival of capitalism, the enlightenment to today’s perverted form, which has little to do with early Christian groups characterized by their cultural decentralization and non-hierarchical nature. Certain instruments of criticism are offered by contemporary feminist protests, which are growing all over the world.

Polyrhythms vs polyvinyl chloride

I always make choices and take action. But sometimes, my heart and body are drawn to something before thinking in the head. Then I change my shape and reach an unknown place. I can’t control where I go.

The turbulent history of Bukovina, now part of Ukraine, has resulted in an extremely varied tapestry of cultural influence. There, youth, fashion, music culture sit side-by-side next to religion, violence and war – and larger political struggles.

An indigenous teacher implements the use of Ayahuasca in her classes in order to connect her students to another reality. During a ritual, one of the children comes upon a weird gear in the forest.

Joining a recent wave of immigration from Turkey to Germany, Aslı is new in Berlin. She auditions for the voice of the audio guide for an archaeological museum, facing her with objects from her home country, including a monumental Zeus Altar. Her encounters during the rest of the day further reveal the absurdity of out of placeness.

A foley artist creates sounds for a film starring a dressage horse and dissolves into his own imitation. Shot on 16mm film, "Passage" winks at Eadweard Muybridge’s pre-cinematic experiments with horses.

In the musicvideo for "Shadowbanned" friends and fans of Stephen Malkmus such as Kim Gordon, Mac DeMarco, Sharon van Etten or Jason Schwartzman perform the song as a cartoon version of Stephen Malkmus. Their footage is interwoven with clips from older videos by Malkmus and his former band Pavement.

"Shepherds" shows how cattle are a constitutive element of the entire social life in Lesotho, a tiny country enclaved within the territory of South Africa. Cows have a deeply symbolic and material significance, and owning them is thus of very great value. The film was made in a jail where cattle thieves are held. They relate episodes from their lives and talk about why they are there.

In a post-apocalyptic world not dissimilar to the present, SUGAR, a humanoid robot that can feel, think and dance, is sent out to bring a human touch back to humanity. SUGAR finally encounters a HON (Human Organism Normal), a post-influencer who in an underground techno cell poses in a sort of eternal commercial. SUGAR tries to free HON from his prison of routines, speech and movement loops and seeks to build a true encounter - an interaction, a dialogue.

"The Ghosts We Left at Home" is a raw and intimate portrayal of a man in grief and a city on fire, doomed and in exile, and sinking to hit rock bottom. It plays in the margin of reality, a homoerotic underworld where forces of the masculine and the feminine alternate, merge, attract and repel.

The film portrays two young women in Munich's Olympia shopping mall. Nine young people with migration background were murdered and somereceived gunshot wounds there in 2016 in a racist attack, with many other people badly injured as well. The camera in the film follows the young women during their everyday explorations of the shopping mall and the place of the racist attack while they speak about their dreams and hopes, but also the contradictions and ruptures, fears and nightmares.

Rufus Wainwright turns himself into a fictional character based on the editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anne Wintour. A commentary on life in a reality that can be artificially altered and on the price of fame.

A feeling of being lost that connects them. The elusiveness that they share. A movement towards one another, then away  again. At the same place, yet somewhere completely different. In “Vicious”, the protagonists of the film  “L'eclisse” (Michelangelo Antonioni) are caught up in this feeling.

A reference system shows the question to all answers: the filter bubble, the fake news, the algorithm and Henry Maske.

The film is transcribed according to the testimony of a former soldier in South Korea, Kim. It gives us access to the demilitarised zone and immerses us into the heart of the personal memory of a soldier who tells us about his experience in a reconnaissance mission.

“Germans make a big fuss while the Turkish just throw something into the ground and it grows like mad!” Korean, Turkish and East Prussian migrants have put down roots in the Ruhr area and its German cliché idyll after a 30-year quest for happiness.

‘The Animal year’ is a story about fate and has been inspired by my personal memory. This is my forth work and as usual I finished the images, the sounds and the music all by myself.

A pre-apocalyptic pastel daydream. We aren’t relaxed, we aren’t carefree, we’re pathologically unable to care.

“Blacktivist” reflects on police brutality, selective enforcement, and the right of self-defence. Scenes reminiscent of the aesthetics of conventional music videos come together with found footage, documentary shots and 3-D animations.

A woman hurls lightning bolts; ghosts gather about her and want to bring her under control. She fights her way through until the ghosts fall silent.

Tired of being despised by his colleagues – a bunch of lowbrow office machos – Mr. Lorenz opposes them and designs his own evening adventures. Free from all constraints and insults, he devotes himself to the charm of the night, of alcohol and karaoke bars.

When the mayor of a little village decides to take in forty refugees, a wave of dislike and hatred befalls him and his family. The short animation tells of a fight against fear and the courage to stand up for your convictions despite the threat of one’s life.

It is not clear what is up and what is down. Gravity is suspended. Only the moment provides orientation – in brief, we are left clueless.

A

full-length curtain moves only in parts and unnoticeably; the reason

remains unclear. Only the title and the sounds in the film hint at

what is

behind it. The

spartan use of stylistic devices that suggest a proximity to the

horror-film genre creates a mysterious atmosphere.

A young girl spends the evening alone at home. She decides to have a sweet solo pleasure session, but not everything goes according to plan.

‘Copyshop’ accompanies Berlin-Köpenick rapper Romano on a voyage of discovery to Hong Kong, where he reviews his past as a copy shop employee in Berlin. It’s all about megacities, stereotypes, creative spaces, rap music, Romano’s copy shop biography and the copy of the copy of the copy ...

They find themselves captivated by the never ending cityscape and sink into a contemplation on urban decay. Living in a concrete jungle is their future.

'What a simple world. And beneath all the undercurrents.' (Brenda Chamberlain) 

Crab Day is a short film made to accompany Cate Le Bon’s eponymous album released in 2016. Shot in Berlin with a host of local performers and dancers on locations including Funkhaus Nalepastraße, seat of the former DDR national radio, Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation and Grunewald forest.

The song by Tall Juan dedicated to all those people who live in the street. Made with acrylics, pastels and pencil on paper.

The video for the piece ‘Damenbartblick’ by Schlammpeitziger is a collaboration between the artist duo Schlammpeitziger from Cologne,Germany, and the artist duo Kota Utka from Kiev,Ukraine. The duo from Cologne created a music video based on the Ukrainian duo's idiosyncratic photos/photo animations.

"Tall trees and an impressive woman are among the best subjects for vertical cinematic art” (Friedrich Liechtenstein). The state of being in love for the first time in the game of life is celebrated. 

Everything will be fine, no matter what happens from now on... 

The wheel of fortune has no choice.

The glance is perception.The video deals with the bias of the room, the non-synthesizable identity. Each image is a mirror into another identity, a rectilinear whiteness that marks the white levels of reason and platform. Identities are fragile.

In a silver catsuit and with a cigarette Sandra Hüller plays a superhero, whose glorious days seem to be long gone. The personal song deals with love, missed chances and finally letting go. These topics also appear in the video, with communication (or its absence) playing a central role, too.

Disguised as a straightforward promotional music video, an iconic 1970 performance by a messianic Elvis Presley is transformed by editing and music into a dark meditation on addiction and the hollowness of celebrity culture.

Elzo uses his imagination to enjoy a day in the backyard.

Based on a flea market find of Super 8 family archives. A father is placed at the center of the image, staging himself in front of the camera as a smug tyrant. A voiceover re-contextualises the images by telling a story of what is not visible.

A poetic experiment

with

body parts and emotions.

Puppets on strings rave, eat and fly.

The people in the video 'FragMANts' worship their consumer goods like religious cult objects. The religion venerated here is that of capitalism, which reveals itself to be superficial and meaningless. The believers of this religion are only uprooted fragments of themselves.

A short documentary about the happiness of Irfan Akcadag‘s father.

‘If you sleep with the same person twice, you are part of the establishment,’ was one saying of the ’68 generation. The established centre of society was a source of danger. The establishment thus became the bogeyman for the ’68 generation. But the former members of that generation have now themselves arrived at the centre of our society, in the luxury suite of the Grand Hotel Establishment.

In a place where a biblical landscape and western myths converge, there is a house,

part biker hangout, part mountain farm. It welcomes all beings who traverse this

inhospitable landscape. In ‘The Hostel’, past and future merge into one place, and

deepest misery and recreation are not mutually exclusive. This is where our paths

cross.

One day, a letter takes a blood sausage to his friend,

liver sausage. So, he sets off …

This experimental short is about the Arctic Wolf Spider, a genus of arachnid common across the North. Climate change has resulted in larger populations and increased predatory tendencies of this carnivorous and cannibalistic spider. 

Danny, Damian and Caroline pile into the house, backwards, but with a sure sense of direction. They say that they are here and that music is important to them. That it is their friend. That they dance to it, they and everyone. That they like Lilla Coke and Ghostbusters. And in summer, they picnic, sing, rattle, knit, swing, cuddle, enjoy themselves together with their house-mates and staff under shady trees in the idyllic garden that they call Reitbrook. They do not suspect that they are quoting the painting entitled ‘Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe’ (1863) by the Impressionist painter Édouard Manet.

The lyrics illuminate the juxtaposition between Europe’s closed-door immigration policies and the free global movement of consumer items. Visually, we are invited into the world of the successful elite where every key position is occupied by – supposedly – immigrants.

The movie tells an individual’s feeling of wandering as well as how he gets lost in the desert of time and seeks the opposite bank. Time and time again, he returns from an alien land to his hometown and then leaves. With bright hope within himself, he goes to look for the ‘Utopia’ in his heart.

The borderland between sleeping and waking is the moment when the

daughter melds into her father.

Two lovers explore a patterned jungle world and meet some animal friends along the way.

„You can always be in two places at once, did you know? The real world and the magical world." 

The voice on the phone whispers in your ear -there's a way to alter reality. A journey through Graveyards, unknown waters, poems, dreams and wishes, telling us that what we long for is waiting for us and that we can meet it in our very own underworld. A film in love, like a prayer, an attempt to reclaim of what seems lost, to open the gateway and enter the real world.

In the so called post-colonial era, the poor countries continue to be subjected ton the same group of countries that colonised them. In Europe everybody pretends not to know or to remember it. The very same international cooperation that ‘helps’ the poorest countries leaves in the air a scent of infinite dependency.

We haven't gone viral.

The camera moves in on a disturbingly normal home, closer and closer; the door opens as if by magic, and the camera flies through a maze of repetitive rooms. The start becomes the ending and the ending becomes the start.

"My Castle Your Castle" investigates the construction site of the rebuilt Berliner Stadtschloss as a place where national hegemonies supposedly transform into identity-generating architectures and so appear as spaces which can be conquered and restaged.

My mum’s bonkers. Out of one eye she cries Puccini, out of the other she reprimands me.

The music video ‘Nützliche Katastrophen’ shows a fantasy (personified by a couple) of Caligula-like power in an appropriate training context. This archaic man-woman alliance has understood that it can make most impact 'pedagogically' if it is enacted with enough authoritarianism, mindless domination and completely autocratic decision-making. Political fears and panic are spouted tirelessly before it recommends itself to the unsettled ‘dupes’ as a drastic redemptive system.

‘One Hour Real’ explores the coulisses and facades of a contemporary free-time phenomenon, real-life escape games. The film raises questions about surveillance, the human yearning to play, and the relation between imprisonment and desire.

You against me. Us against the world.
We do not get along anymore, but we long for each other.

Since 2017 the two giant panda bears Meng Meng and Jiao Qing have been
hired out to the Berlin Zoo from China. Unfortunately for the Zoo, this
profit seeking attraction did not work  – in fact, it
worked backwards. Meng Meng, the female panda will only walk backwards.
Kerstin Honeit’s video aligns Meng Meng’s protest with other
performances of protesting bodies using movement in public space to
address grievances

The Story of a little Furry, who will make a great discovery by overcoming the fear of the unknown.

A man walks through the forest and tries to find berries. Instead, he finds an empty French dressing bottle. A genie comes out of the bottle and grants the man three wishes. The man uses the wishes traditionally but constantly resorts to bad language which the genie does not approve of. So the man is going to learn a lesson.

The world is upside down.

Girardet's visual transfer of Second Chance Man, "a song about risk" (Stuart Staples), is part of The Waiting Room Film Project, a track by track interpretation of Tindersticks' latest album by various directors.

‘Sento’ is a Japanese public bath. This particular public bath features fascinating details such as a wall-size print of  Mount Fuji, pop yellow plastic washbowls, asymmetrical mirrors and other things fusing in a dance.

An ensemble of playground equipment, a 20-minute break and the joys of dizziness create an involuntary choreography.

A chubby, red-headed, mini-anarchist is about to become your idol. A sweaty, round-faced, pre-teen boy is our protagonist. Walking amongst ruins in his trackies, he smokes, stuffs his face repeatedly and pulls out some pretty mad shapes.

A boy is standing near a power station in the inlands of Norrland, Sweden, by a waterfall that no longer exists. ‘The Power Grid’ is a personal film about growing up surrounded by rich natural resources; about power production, colonialism, and an awareness that grows from seeing, seeing again and questioning what surrounds you.

Under the conditions of 2015, this film tells its story in an indirect way: We are in a telephone switchboard.

The video 'Three Casualties' is an investigation of three movie scenes, showing stunts that lead to the deaths of the stunt doubles performing them. In some cases these scenes were left in the films so that a large audience simultaneously witnessed an actual death as well as a fictional one on screen. 

‘Tiefenschärfe’ interrogates places in Nuremberg where the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU) committed three murders between 2000 and 2005. It is a circular observation that contextualises the crime scenes by means of their surroundings, that reads in their markings and shows the way they are used or have been adapted today.

Accompanied by a lilting soundtrack, characters wander through London's concrete jungle as an unknown female voice reflects on the current state of the city and imagined future.

A train ride reveals strange incidences.

In the middle of the night, a broken farted finds music in the arms of beautiful strangers.

An actors’ tutorial about crying fake tears on camera. Ten actresses don’t only explain, how to make oneself cry in ten easy steps, they also give their best to demonstrate it.

Alone in a European city, a young black man dives into dark corners of his mind, into the self.

In Islamic law autonomous adjudication is called “Ijtihad”. Four young Muslims are put in this situation when a confession during a harmless trip leads to an argument about faith, sin and forgiveness.

About a personal memory of childhood and youth in Kibbutz Dafna, located near Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon. Shelters, gas masks, thundering missiles, and buzzing Helicopters are background to the brook's water flow, sweet music, selective palette and minimalistic linework that tune down the nightmares. 

A collective is a social entity, whose voluntarily organizing members are connected by joint action. In this definition the term “harmony” refers to harmonizing sounds. The syllables are separated as follows: a society in which every individual can make their dreams come true by performance and competition.

All the world's a selfie and everyone's a troll. 

"16mm Selfie" was made entirely using 16mm film footage from the 1950's, found in forgotten storages in Mumbai's thieves market.

In 1998, filmmaker Barbara Hammer had a filmmaking residency without water or electricity.  In 2018, Barbara began her own process of dying. She gave her material from the residency to Lynne Sachs who explored Barbara’s experience of solitude. Lynne places text on the screen as a confrontation with a somatic cinema, bringing us all together in multiple spaces and times.

The Ladies eat, the gentlemen beat.

A short study of the interior of amaryllis flowers, shot on 16mm film. The central pistol, the stamens and the anthers, which produce the yellow pollen, are set against the colour field of the petals.

An essay film that studies what being at home means. The filmmaker uses photographs, maps and Google Earth to connect places around the globe from her own past and from the complex migratory history of her family, that stretches back to Hitler-era Germany and Mao's China. Reality and the virtual prove equally confusing: as much as you zoom in, you never get closer to home.

Greece 1986-1987, a little before the fall of State Socialism and just at the end of the Cold War. In front of Anthi’s eyes the country is changing, the world is changing and with them Christos seems to be changing too.

Sohrab Hura focuses on intimate family life, particularly the relationship between his mother who was diagnosed with acute Paranoid Schizophrenia and her dog, Elsa. What began as a way to escape his family situation turned into a method of confronting the realities at home. Photographed and filmed over a period of ten years, it is a search for meaning and closure with Hura questioning and discovering the banalities of everyday life at home.

RIP Nip$ey

RIP Prodigy 

Hip hop on the front line in the dumpland territories. Thoughts of murderous vengeance dangling in a sun savoury rot. (The hottest on the west.) The Digital Sickness defecates analogue flesh for the consumption of the bourgeoisie. Tastes like syrup and uprooted hair, flickering with nausea.

https://thedigitalsickness.bandcamp.com/

The first cracks in the otherwise sedate everyday routine of the Chico Crew.

As the lyrics and music already tell us, this is about fragments of memory. The video reflects growing up and everyday life in West Germany before the Wall came down. VHS and Super 8 material from the 70s and 80s is juxtaposed with present-day footage of band members and old companions, sometimes in split screen. We see typical surroundings and architecture from this era, almost-forgotten dances of various subcultures and remnants of all this in the present day.

Some days she imagines that by her sheer will she can make body parts fall off of people who seem vicious to her. And some other days everyone around her looks beautiful. And when she was little, she wished that flowers would grow out of her footprints.

In August 1984 a house inhabited by migrant workers was burnt down in Duisburg, killing seven members of a family. While the police immediately ruled out racism as a reason, the survivors continue to doubt that it was a coincidence that their house was set on fire.

In 1982, the eruption of a volcano called Chichonal forced the Zoque community to relocate. Filmed over the course of six years, (((((/*\))))) captures the unique atmosphere of the Indigenous group’s Chiapas village. Gradually, political themes come to the surface. 

CLIMBER: “In us: the last bytes of humanity and duty, to keep them alive for those that come after us.” EURYDICE: “Climb! Don't turn round!” - “Stay at the bottom! I'll go out, the air is thin ...” – she laughs: “... and green, colour that makes assertions” – “Black blurring, flight of birds” – “Reality that we constantly concoct in the studio.”

On a summer day the animals in the forest are invited to a party. They eat lots of cake and dance all night. When the party is over and they head back to their homes, they encounter a desolate landscape: there are no more trees to find food and refuge. Strange Creatures have stolen their homes.

A young woman is losing her epilepsy. Lucky — you would think.
 The last days before the summer vacation begin. As before, she spends them with her friends at school.  She is supposed to say goodbye to her illness as well as to the shared familiar place.
 

Rumors are spreading. It is said that Giovanni's mother is a bad person. Is she a liar, a whore? He is rejected in his own Palermo neighbourhood and wanders under the judgmental gaze of friends, children, elders and crazy men. A silent turtle for sole consolation, he walks in circles.

Within this community, where life goes on as usual, through these ordinary, common and sincere individual experiences, and phases of life, how can we build a society of the self, to examine the current singular and enduring modes of thinking? How to influence the space of people’s existence and communication in a long-term way within the socio-political and economic structures?

Like talking toy animals, we sit there and speak, every day. We speak “copy-and-paste” language. We don't know yet what we will have said. In the “Istanbul”, it's risky — like being on a Scarface film trip. It can work, it can fail, just like maintaining the role.

What would happen if one were to dissolve the ironclad construct of levelled-out and monotonous personality, i.e. the “I” that prevails in society? The  various views seen here are experiments about the absurd: introspection through the intuitive reworking of one's own photo, re-individualisation of the conformist personality.

Junkerhaus is shot in the residence of Karl Junker (1850 -1912) who dedicated his life to building his house in Lemgo, Germany. Reflections, projections and changes in light form abstract shapes which animate surfaces and structures, producing a psychological portrait that offers a new appreciation of Junker’s architecture as a mystical and visionary experience.

Dietrich Brüggemann, born in 1976, is a German film director, screenwriter and musician. Numerous music videos in Oberhausen, this year with "Kunst" in the MuVi Award.

Alex Gerbaulet, *1977, lives and works as an artist, filmmaker and curator in Berlin. Last work in Oberhausen: „Depth of Field“ (2017).

Kerstin Honeit studied fine arts and stage design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. Since 2014 she has been teaching at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Last work in Oberhausen: "PANDA MOONWALK or WHY MENG MENG WALKS BACKWARDS" (2018).

Judith Hopf (* 1969 in Karlsruhe) is a German artist. She teaches as a professor for free art at the Frankfurt Städelschule. Last film in Oberhausen: "Out" (2018).

Kristina Kilian is currently studying at the University of Television and Film Munich and won the 3sat sponsorship award in Oberhausen in 2019 for her short film "Which Way to The West".

Korpys/Löffler is the German artist duo Andree Korpys (* 1966 in Bremen) and Markus Löffler (* 1963 in Bremen). The filmmakers are lecturers at the University of the Arts Bremen. Last film in Oberhausen: "Gesang der Jünglinge" (2010).

Brenda Lien (* 1995) works as an independent filmmaker and composer. Her works have been shown at renowned film festivals worldwide. Last film in Oberhausen: "Call of Comfort" (2018).

Franz Müller (* 1965 in Mosbach) is a German director and scriptwriter, and also works as co-editor of the film magazine "Revolver". Most recently he showed his short film "Ordinary Seaman" (2010) in Oberhausen.

Jens Pecho (* 1978 in Frankfurt am Main) is a contemporary German artist. Last film in Oberhausen: "RGB" (2019).

Andreas Reihse is an artist and musician and one of the founding members of the Kreidler music group. He also appears as an author and in changing roles in film, performance and theatre projects.

Zaza Rusadze is a filmmaker living in Berlin. He also works as a video artist for theatre productions, most recently in Hamburg and Vienna, and is about to complete his first novel.

Jovana Reisinger (* 1989 in Munich) is a German author and filmmaker. Last film in Oberhausen: "sad boyz get high" (2018).

Upright video of a mobile phone that is filming a band and turning it into art.

The social imaginary of an utopian landscape through the voices who inhabit it.

Arístides died of a gunshot when he was 19 years old, while he was doing his Military Service in the Cuban Navy. He was shot in the chest at close range by the soldier who was supposed to relieve him in duty, with a Makarov PM handgun made in USSR. There are no images of him; just a letter he wrote to his sister a few hours before dying, whose reply never came to be.

A story about several hours, which significantly change the adolescent boy's life. In a small town in Latvia, there is an old Ferris wheel near a bar, in which the protagonist meets a female truck driver, and soon the wheel of fate of the adolescent boy is set in motion.

Dichotomies of the world are not something of Christianity itself, but were formed later, from the early church fathers. This extended through institutionalization, the arrival of capitalism, the enlightenment to today’s perverted form, which has little to do with early Christian groups characterized by their cultural decentralization and non-hierarchical nature. Certain instruments of criticism are offered by contemporary feminist protests, which are growing all over the world.

Polyrhythms vs polyvinyl chloride

I always make choices and take action. But sometimes, my heart and body are drawn to something before thinking in the head. Then I change my shape and reach an unknown place. I can’t control where I go.

The turbulent history of Bukovina, now part of Ukraine, has resulted in an extremely varied tapestry of cultural influence. There, youth, fashion, music culture sit side-by-side next to religion, violence and war – and larger political struggles.

An indigenous teacher implements the use of Ayahuasca in her classes in order to connect her students to another reality. During a ritual, one of the children comes upon a weird gear in the forest.

Joining a recent wave of immigration from Turkey to Germany, Aslı is new in Berlin. She auditions for the voice of the audio guide for an archaeological museum, facing her with objects from her home country, including a monumental Zeus Altar. Her encounters during the rest of the day further reveal the absurdity of out of placeness.

A foley artist creates sounds for a film starring a dressage horse and dissolves into his own imitation. Shot on 16mm film, "Passage" winks at Eadweard Muybridge’s pre-cinematic experiments with horses.

In the musicvideo for "Shadowbanned" friends and fans of Stephen Malkmus such as Kim Gordon, Mac DeMarco, Sharon van Etten or Jason Schwartzman perform the song as a cartoon version of Stephen Malkmus. Their footage is interwoven with clips from older videos by Malkmus and his former band Pavement.

"Shepherds" shows how cattle are a constitutive element of the entire social life in Lesotho, a tiny country enclaved within the territory of South Africa. Cows have a deeply symbolic and material significance, and owning them is thus of very great value. The film was made in a jail where cattle thieves are held. They relate episodes from their lives and talk about why they are there.

In a post-apocalyptic world not dissimilar to the present, SUGAR, a humanoid robot that can feel, think and dance, is sent out to bring a human touch back to humanity. SUGAR finally encounters a HON (Human Organism Normal), a post-influencer who in an underground techno cell poses in a sort of eternal commercial. SUGAR tries to free HON from his prison of routines, speech and movement loops and seeks to build a true encounter - an interaction, a dialogue.

The film portrays two young women in Munich's Olympia shopping mall. Nine young people with migration background were murdered and somereceived gunshot wounds there in 2016 in a racist attack, with many other people badly injured as well. The camera in the film follows the young women during their everyday explorations of the shopping mall and the place of the racist attack while they speak about their dreams and hopes, but also the contradictions and ruptures, fears and nightmares.

Rufus Wainwright turns himself into a fictional character based on the editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anne Wintour. A commentary on life in a reality that can be artificially altered and on the price of fame.

A feeling of being lost that connects them. The elusiveness that they share. A movement towards one another, then away  again. At the same place, yet somewhere completely different. In “Vicious”, the protagonists of the film  “L'eclisse” (Michelangelo Antonioni) are caught up in this feeling.

A reference system shows the question to all answers: the filter bubble, the fake news, the algorithm and Henry Maske.

Empire is based on the famous radio drama “Sorry, Wrong Number” by the American writer Lucille Fletcher. Sokurov draws on a single theme forming the background for the story of the thriller, the woman's illness. The heroine is bed–ridden and her only means of communication with the outside world is her telephone — until a killer interrupts the conversation… 

An artist’s diary about men during war: documentary footage showing Russian soldiers at the Tajik-Afghan border that becomes a meditation about a fragile situation. Borderline experience between the discontinued private life in the remote home country and the nearness of death in the brooding heat of the mountains. National defence as an eternal task and everyday routine. Waiting for a lucky year in 1995

Russia between the turn of the century and World War One. Pictures and everyday sounds from different times merge to form a dream-like entity. The past seems as close as that which is to come. Sleep divides perception into states of reflection and physically experienceable present. Life time and historical time become one figure; only the individual crosses the border between sleep and death.

This is the second film Sokurov has made with Boris Yeltsin. Now Yeltsin is Russia’s first democratic president. Conversation between the two men seems in-timate and on an equal footing. Sokurov carefully hedges in his protagonist. His house, his family, his armchair. ‘Do you feel old?’ Yeltsin is not shown as a model, but as an example of someone trying to find his own pitch.

The film gives exact specifications. It was made on May 21, 1990, from 1:51 pm to 2:06 pm in the office of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Lithuania, Vy-tautas Landsbergis. The Soviet republic had declared its independence from the Soviet Union a few weeks before, as the first republic to do so. Its new chairman is a man of culture. In two sequence shots, Sokurov measures out the aesthetic transformation of the political space in real time.

‘Our story is about a strange and exceptional person who starts a new life after being demoted from his civil service job. On the one hand, a whole host of previous problems drags on him; on the other, he perceives an inner rebirth – not yet consciously and not understanding its consequences.‘ Sokurov in a letter to the main actor, Ilya Rivin.

Hubert Robert, a French painter of the 18th century, was friendly by nature and loved by all. He painted huge pictures of ruins in landscapes and was in perfect harmony with the ideals of his time and the wishes of his clients. This film was com-missioned by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Sokurov chose the pictures by this fortunate man from among its countless art treasures.

This excerpt from the third part of ‘Spiritual Voices’ is conceived as a short film in its own right and reduces the borderline experience between life and death to a single image: soldiers who are sleeping. A soldier lies on a field in the mined area on the Tajik-Afghan border. Exhausted from being on duty, he sleeps in the open air, wrapped in a heavy coat.

Hands play the main role in this found-footage film. They work and rest, gesticulate, tease, stretch out fanatically in a salute. Adolf Hitler rubs his helplessly. The film refers to Michail Romm’s ‘Ordinary Fascism’, but gives the German newsreel material a psychological twist. Hitler and Stalin’s years of existence frame the images of destructive gestures and create an archival order.

‘Patience and hard work will overcome all.’ The film title refers to a Russian proverb to this effect. But Sokurov leaves out the ‘and’ in the title and tells, in rapidly edited images, about how professional ice skaters inflict a huge strain on their bodies and lives to achieve top form. Enough to make one dizzy. A commis-sioned work that did not please initially.

The first of a series of films made in Japan. An island, a forest; houses gradually become visible behind wafts of mist. The narra-tor’s voice cautiously takes up contact with their ghostly residents, who seem woven into the dense materiality of the timeless place. Yearning for happiness, for belonging. Sokurov has many questions for the painting-like figures, who answer him candidly.

Dietrich Brüggemann, born in 1976, is a German film director, screenwriter and musician. Numerous music videos in Oberhausen, this year with "Kunst" in the MuVi Award.

Alex Gerbaulet, *1977, lives and works as an artist, filmmaker and curator in Berlin. Last work in Oberhausen: „Depth of Field“ (2017).

Kerstin Honeit studied fine arts and stage design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. Since 2014 she has been teaching at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Last work in Oberhausen: "PANDA MOONWALK or WHY MENG MENG WALKS BACKWARDS" (2018).

Judith Hopf (* 1969 in Karlsruhe) is a German artist. She teaches as a professor for free art at the Frankfurt Städelschule. Last film in Oberhausen: "Out" (2018).

Kristina Kilian is currently studying at the University of Television and Film Munich and won the 3sat sponsorship award in Oberhausen in 2019 for her short film "Which Way to The West".

Korpys/Löffler is the German artist duo Andree Korpys (* 1966 in Bremen) and Markus Löffler (* 1963 in Bremen). The filmmakers are lecturers at the University of the Arts Bremen. Last film in Oberhausen: "Gesang der Jünglinge" (2010).

Brenda Lien (* 1995) works as an independent filmmaker and composer. Her works have been shown at renowned film festivals worldwide. Last film in Oberhausen: "Call of Comfort" (2018).

Franz Müller (* 1965 in Mosbach) is a German director and scriptwriter, and also works as co-editor of the film magazine "Revolver". Most recently he showed his short film "Ordinary Seaman" (2010) in Oberhausen.

Jens Pecho (* 1978 in Frankfurt am Main) is a contemporary German artist. Last film in Oberhausen: "RGB" (2019).

Andreas Reihse is an artist and musician and one of the founding members of the Kreidler music group. He also appears as an author and in changing roles in film, performance and theatre projects.

Zaza Rusadze is a filmmaker living in Berlin. He also works as a video artist for theatre productions, most recently in Hamburg and Vienna, and is about to complete his first novel.

Jovana Reisinger (* 1989 in Munich) is a German author and filmmaker. Last film in Oberhausen: "sad boyz get high" (2018).

An indigenous teacher implements the use of Ayahuasca in her classes in order to connect her students to another reality. During a ritual, one of the children comes upon a weird gear in the forest.

In 1982, the eruption of a volcano called Chichonal forced the Zoque community to relocate. Filmed over the course of six years, (((((/*\))))) captures the unique atmosphere of the Indigenous group’s Chiapas village. Gradually, political themes come to the surface. 

Greece 1986-1987, a little before the fall of State Socialism and just at the end of the Cold War. In front of Anthi’s eyes the country is changing, the world is changing and with them Christos seems to be changing too.

Rumors are spreading. It is said that Giovanni's mother is a bad person. Is she a liar, a whore? He is rejected in his own Palermo neighbourhood and wanders under the judgmental gaze of friends, children, elders and crazy men. A silent turtle for sole consolation, he walks in circles.

"The Ghosts We Left at Home" is a raw and intimate portrayal of a man in grief and a city on fire, doomed and in exile, and sinking to hit rock bottom. It plays in the margin of reality, a homoerotic underworld where forces of the masculine and the feminine alternate, merge, attract and repel.

Like talking toy animals, we sit there and speak, every day. We speak “copy-and-paste” language. We don't know yet what we will have said. In the “Istanbul”, it's risky — like being on a Scarface film trip. It can work, it can fail, just like maintaining the role.

The social imaginary of an utopian landscape through the voices who inhabit it.

The film portrays two young women in Munich's Olympia shopping mall. Nine young people with migration background were murdered and somereceived gunshot wounds there in 2016 in a racist attack, with many other people badly injured as well. The camera in the film follows the young women during their everyday explorations of the shopping mall and the place of the racist attack while they speak about their dreams and hopes, but also the contradictions and ruptures, fears and nightmares.

Some days she imagines that by her sheer will she can make body parts fall off of people who seem vicious to her. And some other days everyone around her looks beautiful. And when she was little, she wished that flowers would grow out of her footprints.

The Ladies eat, the gentlemen beat.

The first cracks in the otherwise sedate everyday routine of the Chico Crew.

As the lyrics and music already tell us, this is about fragments of memory. The video reflects growing up and everyday life in West Germany before the Wall came down. VHS and Super 8 material from the 70s and 80s is juxtaposed with present-day footage of band members and old companions, sometimes in split screen. We see typical surroundings and architecture from this era, almost-forgotten dances of various subcultures and remnants of all this in the present day.

CLIMBER: “In us: the last bytes of humanity and duty, to keep them alive for those that come after us.” EURYDICE: “Climb! Don't turn round!” - “Stay at the bottom! I'll go out, the air is thin ...” – she laughs: “... and green, colour that makes assertions” – “Black blurring, flight of birds” – “Reality that we constantly concoct in the studio.”

What would happen if one were to dissolve the ironclad construct of levelled-out and monotonous personality, i.e. the “I” that prevails in society? The  various views seen here are experiments about the absurd: introspection through the intuitive reworking of one's own photo, re-individualisation of the conformist personality.

Upright video of a mobile phone that is filming a band and turning it into art.

Polyrhythms vs polyvinyl chloride

The turbulent history of Bukovina, now part of Ukraine, has resulted in an extremely varied tapestry of cultural influence. There, youth, fashion, music culture sit side-by-side next to religion, violence and war – and larger political struggles.

In the musicvideo for "Shadowbanned" friends and fans of Stephen Malkmus such as Kim Gordon, Mac DeMarco, Sharon van Etten or Jason Schwartzman perform the song as a cartoon version of Stephen Malkmus. Their footage is interwoven with clips from older videos by Malkmus and his former band Pavement.

A feeling of being lost that connects them. The elusiveness that they share. A movement towards one another, then away  again. At the same place, yet somewhere completely different. In “Vicious”, the protagonists of the film  “L'eclisse” (Michelangelo Antonioni) are caught up in this feeling.

A reference system shows the question to all answers: the filter bubble, the fake news, the algorithm and Henry Maske.

I always make choices and take action. But sometimes, my heart and body are drawn to something before thinking in the head. Then I change my shape and reach an unknown place. I can’t control where I go.

All the world's a selfie and everyone's a troll. 

"16mm Selfie" was made entirely using 16mm film footage from the 1950's, found in forgotten storages in Mumbai's thieves market.

RIP Nip$ey

RIP Prodigy 

Hip hop on the front line in the dumpland territories. Thoughts of murderous vengeance dangling in a sun savoury rot. (The hottest on the west.) The Digital Sickness defecates analogue flesh for the consumption of the bourgeoisie. Tastes like syrup and uprooted hair, flickering with nausea.

https://thedigitalsickness.bandcamp.com/

Rufus Wainwright turns himself into a fictional character based on the editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anne Wintour. A commentary on life in a reality that can be artificially altered and on the price of fame.

A short study of the interior of amaryllis flowers, shot on 16mm film. The central pistol, the stamens and the anthers, which produce the yellow pollen, are set against the colour field of the petals.

Junkerhaus is shot in the residence of Karl Junker (1850 -1912) who dedicated his life to building his house in Lemgo, Germany. Reflections, projections and changes in light form abstract shapes which animate surfaces and structures, producing a psychological portrait that offers a new appreciation of Junker’s architecture as a mystical and visionary experience.

Dichotomies of the world are not something of Christianity itself, but were formed later, from the early church fathers. This extended through institutionalization, the arrival of capitalism, the enlightenment to today’s perverted form, which has little to do with early Christian groups characterized by their cultural decentralization and non-hierarchical nature. Certain instruments of criticism are offered by contemporary feminist protests, which are growing all over the world.

A foley artist creates sounds for a film starring a dressage horse and dissolves into his own imitation. Shot on 16mm film, "Passage" winks at Eadweard Muybridge’s pre-cinematic experiments with horses.

Within this community, where life goes on as usual, through these ordinary, common and sincere individual experiences, and phases of life, how can we build a society of the self, to examine the current singular and enduring modes of thinking? How to influence the space of people’s existence and communication in a long-term way within the socio-political and economic structures?

In 1998, filmmaker Barbara Hammer had a filmmaking residency without water or electricity.  In 2018, Barbara began her own process of dying. She gave her material from the residency to Lynne Sachs who explored Barbara’s experience of solitude. Lynne places text on the screen as a confrontation with a somatic cinema, bringing us all together in multiple spaces and times.

"Shepherds" shows how cattle are a constitutive element of the entire social life in Lesotho, a tiny country enclaved within the territory of South Africa. Cows have a deeply symbolic and material significance, and owning them is thus of very great value. The film was made in a jail where cattle thieves are held. They relate episodes from their lives and talk about why they are there.

Sohrab Hura focuses on intimate family life, particularly the relationship between his mother who was diagnosed with acute Paranoid Schizophrenia and her dog, Elsa. What began as a way to escape his family situation turned into a method of confronting the realities at home. Photographed and filmed over a period of ten years, it is a search for meaning and closure with Hura questioning and discovering the banalities of everyday life at home.

In a post-apocalyptic world not dissimilar to the present, SUGAR, a humanoid robot that can feel, think and dance, is sent out to bring a human touch back to humanity. SUGAR finally encounters a HON (Human Organism Normal), a post-influencer who in an underground techno cell poses in a sort of eternal commercial. SUGAR tries to free HON from his prison of routines, speech and movement loops and seeks to build a true encounter - an interaction, a dialogue.

In August 1984 a house inhabited by migrant workers was burnt down in Duisburg, killing seven members of a family. While the police immediately ruled out racism as a reason, the survivors continue to doubt that it was a coincidence that their house was set on fire.

When the mayor of a little village decides to take in forty refugees, a wave of dislike and hatred befalls him and his family. The short animation tells of a fight against fear and the courage to stand up for your convictions despite the threat of one’s life.

When Abou from Mali finally made it to Europe, it felt like a new life had started for him. A life with a future. But while his film about his voyage to Europe is shown all over the world, he lives isolated in a German refugee home. An essayistic reflection about Europe’s invisible borders and filmmaking as an act of self-empowerment.

Twenty pictures have remained as the only evidence of my early childhood's home - evidence of an almost forgotten home. When I look at these images I have the feeling that they are not part of my life, as if they belonged to someone else...

Introvert Hakan and merry Murat are inseparable. The meet each day, hanging around at their corner in Berlin's Kreuzberg neigbourhood, smoking grass, philosophizing and quarreling. Their days are repetitive, time passes by. All of a sudden hope for change is growing.

‘Tiefenschärfe’ interrogates places in Nuremberg where the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU) committed three murders between 2000 and 2005. It is a circular observation that contextualises the crime scenes by means of their surroundings, that reads in their markings and shows the way they are used or have been adapted today.

This experimental short is about the Arctic Wolf Spider, a genus of arachnid common across the North. Climate change has resulted in larger populations and increased predatory tendencies of this carnivorous and cannibalistic spider. 

Anuk Steffen plays the title role of the new Heidi film. She takes the audience to a mysterious studio, where she adds the sound to a scene from one of the first adaptations of the famous swiss novel.

The Story of a little Furry, who will make a great discovery by overcoming the fear of the unknown.

Two car rides and a location in the middle of nowhere. A seven-year-old boy is about to see his mother for the first time since his parents' divorce. He waits for her at the arranged meeting point together with his father.

Two lovers explore a patterned jungle world and meet some animal friends along the way.

Elzo uses his imagination to enjoy a day in the backyard.

A tomcat is looking for his lost friend. He thinks he can see him in the clouds and starts a cloud collection. He collects until he notices that he has been keeping the memory of his friend in his heart all along. An animated film about wanting to hold on. About slow farewells and greeting the new.