Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen, endowed with 8,000 €

Dėmės ir įbrėžimai (Stains and Scratches)

Deimantas Narkevičius

Lithuania 2017, 7 min. 51 sec., 3D, b/w

Statement:

A stereoscopic and sculptural illusion deconstructs sound and image, absence and presence to expand the projected surface. This film creates a unique exploration of what the cinematic experience can be and is a brilliant response to this year's Oberhausen Festival theme of "Leaving the Cinema"

Principal Prize, endowed with 4,000 €

Hirografo (Manuscript)

Eva Stefani

Greece 2017, 11 min. 56 sec., colour/bw

Statement:

A derive through Athens weaves a singular and atmospheric vision of the city. This contemporary fable makes exceptional use of both archival footage and subtle poetic wit.

e-flux Prize, endowed with 3,000 €

For an exceptional film and video work which reshapes the poetic and electric potential of moving images in the age of planetary circulation of information.

Gimny Moskovii

(The Hymns of Moscovy)

Dimitri Venkov

Russia 2017, 14 min. 24 sec., colour

Statement:

The aesthetic framing of this film flips both history and space to render a vision of a metropolis that is not only visually and sonically spectacular, but truly intergalactic. 

Special Mentions of the International Jury

The Lost Head & The Bird

Sohrab Hura

India 2018, 10 min. 12 sec., colour

Statement:

A searing comment on contemporary society and gender politics, this astoundingly creative film marks the arrival of an exciting new filmmaking talent.

Creature Companion

Melika Bass

USA 2018, 31 min., colour

Statement:

Domestic space, both its intimacy and its violence, has become one of the pressing political subject-matters of our times. On the other side, domestic space was also constant inspiration for cinema in all of its genres. This film combines aesthetics and politics by way of a choreography of indiscipline and insubordination.

mais triste que chuva num recreio de colégio (sadder than playtime on a rainy day)

Lobo Mauro

Brazil 2018, 14 min. 2 sec., colour

Statement:

It's not easy to explain to people from other countries the complexity of the political situation in Brazil, after a coup. Fortunately we have the cinema; we have films that can say more than any words. Sometimes we think we can hope for a better country, for a better world, with less inequality, with more opportunity for everybody, but then we loose from seven to one. That's life and it's difficult to see a happy ending.

Jury of the International Competition 2018

Katie Davies, Bristol

Kristy Matheson, Melbourne

Petar Milat, Zagreb

Daniel Queiroz, Belo Horizonte

Timo Soppela, Helsinki

First Prize of the Jury of the Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of North Rhine-Westphalia, endowed with 5,000 €

The Lost Head & The Bird

Sohrab Hura

India 2018, 10 min. 12 sec., colour

Statement:

Our winner film uses the narrative of an obscure fairytale to generate a maelstrom of images. Visuals created by the filmmaker and finds from the inflationary image production of Social Media, combined in an accelerating montage, create a vortex of contradictions and abysses. Depicting tradition and trash, beauty and decay at the same time, the director Sohrab Hura achieves a fascinatingly condensed description of the state of India today.

Second Prize of the Jury of the Ministry for Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, endowed with 3,000 €

Um filme para Ehuana (A Film for Ehuana)

Louise Botkay

Brazil 2018, 26 min., colour

Statement:

The 2nd prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia goes to a utopia, an Arcadian space where life is carefree, to the portrait of an intact community we feel a romantic nostalgia for. The cinema-ethnographic observation of the Yanomami tribe becomes a projection surface for our longing for an ideal world that is threatening to disappear. A Film for Ehuana by director Louise Botkay picks at the cocoon of our moral wellness we have ensconced ourselves in.

Special Mention of the Jury of the Ministry for Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia

Saladdin Castique

Anssi Kasitonni

Finland 2018, 5 min. 40 sec., colour

Statement:

Nonsense makes sense! When theory fails, silliness comes into its own. In this sense, our special mention recognises a fairytale-like roguish piece which is perfect Dadaist fun, and that's it.

Jury of the Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of North Rhine-Westphalia  

Isabella Fürnkäs, Düsseldorf/Berlin

Ulrike Sprenger, Konstanz

Harry Rag (Peter Braatz), Ljubljana

Christine Anna Bernau, Cologne

Rainer Komers, Berlin/Mülheim an der Ruhr

The International Critics’ Prize  (FIPRESCI Prize)

Gimny Moskovii (The Hymns of Moscovy)

Dimitri Venkov

Russia 2017, 14 min. 24 sec., colour

Statement:

Changing our perspective is sometimes enough to turn the world upside down. A mesmerising cinematic experience that, without any plot, character or dialogue, tells more than meets the eye.

Jury of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI)

Ricardo Brunn, Germany

Irena Kotelovich, Belarus

Paul Landriau, Canada

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, endowed with 1,500 €

Magnificent Obsession

Zhong Su

China 2018, 25 min. 55 sec., colour and b/w

Statement:

It is one of the formulations of the political and social issues of our time: the relationship between the individual and community or society, and how the individual can live in the latter's reality. Zhong Su's artwork, set in contemporary China, portrays this as the tale of an individual's search for knowledge and transcendence by displaying the reality he faces in a kaleidoscope of three synoptic perspectives. It starts as a "landscape" of the present and the technical, social, socialist-capitalist reality as an underwater world. It continues in the "passions", talking of social desires, goals and dogmas, before "history" captures the community through the ages and contexts in further stunning images. Zhong Su closes this interpretation of reality with a fourth chapter entitled "adaptation": based formally on J.L. Borges' "Book of Sand", but also related to the life of the individual as they are explorating, adapting and reworking reality in their quest to transcend it. He finds his obsession not in archaic collections of writings but in the endless preciousness of Holy Writings he encounters. His obsessive search for an experience of himself in a reality transcending the given reality becomes a mystic immersion in which he encounters self-knowledge. And yet it doesn't take him outside of himself: despite his obsessive self-knowledge he cannot escape himself. An epic short film work of art.

Special Mention of the Ecumenical Jury

Erh Hao Chiu Yi (On the Waitlist)

Wu Hung Yi

Taiwan 2017, 26 min. 35 sec., colour

Statement:

The never-ending path of growing up means unfolding oneself. The waiting room of life is full of intentions to grow beyond oneself and to learn to live in reality with one's own limitations - neither achievable nor bearable without the experience of friendship as a comparison, support or source of unhappiness. Erh Hao Chiu Yi is the intense and successful portrait of the challenges of friendship, cohesion, community, comparison, ambition, mediocrity and the talents of two young women on this path.

Caterpillarplasty

David Barlow-Krelina

Canada 2017, 5 min. 20 sec., colour

Statement:

The dis-position of man refers equally to the loss of inner life and the cheap selling-out of human individuality. The compulsion of constant self-optimisation is therefore expressed in a compulsion to perfect the standardisations of a promise of beauty. They are suggested in the revelation of their real beauty, but beauty decays to become the de-personalised, slippery smooth surface of a self-parody. In its masterful form as much as in its intention, Caterpillarplasty is a dark, wet, equally fascinating and slippery glamour portrait of this alleged beauty.

Ecumenical Jury 2018

Alexander Bothe, Germany

Gudrun Hohenberger, Austria

Markus Manzer, Germany

Christian Murer, Switzerland

ZONTA Prize to a female filmmaker in the International or German Competition, endowed with 1,000 €

Tsuchi no hito - 2017 gekijyoban (Mud Man - 2017 Film Ver.)

Yamashiro Chikako

Japan 2017, 26 min., colour

Statement:

In a visually stunning and sensual work, the filmmaker explores war and its traumatic consequences, serious and funny at the same time. Original and innovative, cinematic storytelling in the best sense of the term.

Prize for the best contribution to the German Competition, endowed with 5,000 Euro

VALEA JIULUI - NOTES

Alexandra Gulea

Germany 2018, 13 min. 30 sec., colour

Statement:

On the one hand, the distance between image and sound is the distance this narrative focuses on: the economically motivated chasm between mothers who have to work abroad so their children can grow up here. On the other hand, the distance between the melancholy images of decayed industrial landscapes and the laconic fragments of desperation in the commentary creates a space for reflections - about the cost of the prosperity gap in Europe, which cannot be calculated in economic balance sheets; which has to be borne by individuals and which is nonetheless more than an individual problem - which is why this simple but effective and intelligently composed film doesn't portray it this way.

3sat-Promotional Prize, endowed with 2,500 Euro

For a contribution with a particularly innovative approach.

In addition the award includes a buying option on the awarded work to be broadcast on 3sat.

Bigger Than Life

Adnan Softić

Germany/Italy/Macedonia 2018, 30 min., colour

Statement:

The music sets the tone of this film - an extremely funny one. The very first lines are sung - exquisitely, with a sure sense of pathos and breaks, which is why it takes a while until the sentence is at last completed and recognizable as a Johann Joachim Winckelmann quote. The music also provides the playful structure of this survey of a corny urban planning project that is meant to catapult Skopje to the premier ranks of European history, on equal terms with Rome and Athens. The film is armed against this intention with irony, while covering the monumental aspirations in an original cinematic style: buildings and structures are observed by an attentive camera at different times, from different angles, in different light. Telling details represent the whole, like the bickering pigeons on the head of a statue standing outside the window of a concerned - because urban dweller - inhabitant.

Special Mention of the Jury of the German Competition

Three Casualties

Jens Pecho

Germany 2017, 7 min. 16 sec., colour

Statement:

Showing on film what film doesn't show is the attraction of this film. Three studies on images whose drama is easily overlooked in the films they are part of, even though they are dramatic indeed: it's about daring stunts. But because dying is so easy in the illusion of cinema, this research is needed to mark the intrusion of the real into the production of illusions: by deceleration, textual information, de-contextualisation. All this generates a genuinely cinematic, because voyeuristic, suspense as one is watching the film - the question whether a real death will be displayed here. The fact that the film plays with this while never overstepping the bounds speaks for its quality.

Jury of the German Competition 2018

Matthias Dell, Berlin

Heike Klippel, Braunschweig

Katja Wiederspahn, Vienn

Prize for the best contribution to the NRW Competition, endowed with 1,000 €, sponsored by NRW.Bank

Prize for the best contribution to the NRW Competition

1,000 Euros

sponsored by NRW.Bank

Eine Kneipe auf Malle (A Bar on Majorca)

Marian Mayland

Germany 2017, 15 min., colour

Statement:

The development and projection of a superimposed Super 8 film, in its coarse grain and resolution, mirrors the end of facticity. The shrinking of the parliamentary extreme right is followed by rightist and leftist ideologies whose digital dissemination generates a growing haze. A multi-layered essay, Marian Mayland's film reflects social, political and populist upheavals that are by no means as harmless as its title.

Promotional Award of the NRW Competition, endowed with 500 €, sponsored by the NRW.Bank

Hallstatt erleben (Hallstatt Experience)

Julia Weißenberg

Germany/China 2018, 8 min. 55 sec., colour

Statement:

Verdant palms in front of boxes of geraniums, orthographic slips and Austrian licence plates suggest the possibility of differentiating between original and copy. The label "Made in China" also adheres to the reproduction of an idyllic Austrian village in the Southern Chinese provinces. In a tourism video of a different kind, Julia Weißenberg achieves a scurrilous sound and image collage between tradition and exoticism whose unreal character is underlined at the end by a digitally animated church tower.

Distinction of the NRW Jury

Kursmeldungen

(Position Reports)

Rainer Komers

Germany 2017, 29 min. 50 sec., colour

Statement:

This Special Mention is in fact meant to distinguish an outstanding landscape symphony. We feel enraptured by a concentrated observation of people, animals and a region which condenses space and suspends time. We thank Rainer Komers for his film Kursmeldungen, which was an extraordinary and incredibly sustained cinema experience.

Jury of the North Rhine-Westfalia Competition

Gunter Deller, Frankfurt

Kathrin Häger, Cologne

Marita Quaas, Cologne

Prize of the Westart Audience Jury, endowed with 750 €, sponsored by West ART

Das letzte Haus (The Last House)

Anna Kindermann

Germany 2018, 15 min. 33 sec., colour

Statement:

Three men - few words.

Authentic, life-affirming, honest, thoughtful, practical and very respectful. This film moved us, the Westart Audience jury, most.

Prize of the Children's Jury of the International Children's Competition, endowed with 1,000 €, sponsored by Wirtschaftsbetriebe Oberhausen

Lili dans les nuages (Lili within the Clouds)

Toma Leroux

France 2017, 15 min., colour

Statement:

We would have loved to give our winner 1,000 points! It tells a story which made us all very sad. But we liked watching the film anyway. And there were moments when we could laugh out loud. It was fascinating that you understand the story only at the very end.

evo Promotional Award of the Children's Jury, endowed with 1,000 €, sponsored by the Energieversorgung Oberhausen AG (evo)

Plody mraků (The Fruit of the Clouds)

Kateřina Karhánková

Czech Republic 2017, 10 min. 20 sec., colour

Statement:

What we liked about our winner is that it is told almost like a fairytale. The hero of the film has a smart idea and solves a big problem. But he has to overcome his own problems first. We liked that. We also liked that the film is animated, and that the figures are so cute.

Special Mention of the Children's Jury

Rammat-Gammat (Die Schuhe meines besten Freundes)

Ajitpal Singh

Indien 2018, 18 Min. 22 Sek., Farbe

Begründung:

Unsere lobende Erwähnung verleihen wir einem Film, der davon erzählt, dass es für eine gute Freundschaft ganz egal ist, ob jemand arm oder reich ist. Dass es in dem Film auch um Fußball geht, hat uns auch gut gefallen.

Ma Mama (Toto Bona Lokua)

Katy Wang

Großbritannien 2017, 3 Min. 46 Sek., Farbe

Begründung:

Die vielen schönen Muster, bunten Farben und die fröhliche Musik haben uns bei diesem Musikvideo sofort richtig gut gefallen. Weil Musik und Bilder so gut zusammenpassen, ist es so, als würde man mit den Figuren auf eine Traumreise gehen.

Jury of the Children's Film Competition 

Fares Abdel Fattah

Helen Hiller,

olina Marie Jonas

Milan Kramer

Victoria Nenova

Prize of the Youth Jury, endowed with 1,000 Euros, sponsored by the Rotary Club Oberhausen

Pépé le morse (Grandpa Walrus)

Lucrèce Andreae

France 2017, 14 min. 45 sec., colour

Statement:

At the end of this film many of us had tears in our eyes. In our opinion it unites everything that a good film must have: we laughed, cried and even got the creeps a little. Through the portrait of a family, the film deals with different ways to cope with grief, which offers many opportunities to relate it to our own lives. We also liked the fact that the story offers constant openings for further interpretation. And we were particularly impressed by its style of animation and the fact that the different characters are so well developed. Its harmonious combination of sound and image also appealed to us. We could watch this film again and again!

Special Mention of the Jury of the Youth Film Competition  

L U I S T E R (L I S T E N)

Astrid Bussink

Netherlands 2017, 15 min., colour

Statement:

When you have problems and worries you need someone who is there for you - and an open ear. It was nice to learn from this documentary that the people who work for helplines are always there for children and young people. The film depicts some very different and current problems we could identify with. What fascinated us is that we had to learn how this film worked first. When we had found the red thread, though, it was fun to get into this kind of narrative. Small details are used to translate words literally into visuals. And the way the story develops over the course of the film is very touching.

Jury of the Youth Film Competition

Florian Becker

Laura Dessi

Artion Ejupi,

Franka Prinz,

Laura Student

ECFA Short Film Award 2018

L U I S T E R

(L I S T E N)

Astrid Bussink

Netherlands 2017, 15 min., colour

Statement:

An experimental animated short film that talks to young audiences from their perspective is a rare breed. Although we have seen a lot of great and exceptional short films during the last days, our choice was unanimous. This documentary tells us the stories of four different children in a way young audiences can relate to. Although it seems sometimes a bit too dense in including an enormous range of possible problems, it offers children various possibilities to empathize with the protagonists and demonstrates that communication can sometimes help. And that the adult's role in this conversation is maybe rather the listening part! Despite its heavy content it doesn't leave the viewer hopeless and even makes us laugh in some moments. Its visual style appeals to children and takes their aesthetics seriously while still challenging their viewing habits. And the editing succeeds in combining these four stories with four different visual approaches.

ECFA-Jury

Ivana Jakobović Alpeza, Croatia

Lina Paulsen, Germany

Hilde Steenssens, Belgium

Certificate of the Ecumenical Jury for a film in the International Children's and Youth Film Competition 

in connection with a recommendation for Matthias Film and the Katholisches Filmwerk to buy the film for their catalogues

Carlotta's Face

Frédéric Schuld/Valentin Riedl

Germany 2018, 5 min., colour

Statement:

Carlotta's world is marked by a physical limitation: the animated images of this short film charmingly illustrate the impressive story of a face blind woman, her path through school and life, while adopting her perspective on the world. The masterly quality of this dignified and unbiased short film consists in revealing the impossibility, caused by her lack of a physical image of herself, of this artfully animated perspective and at the same time in portraying her in a successful and loving way without reducing her by mere pity. Thus the film reveals its protagonist as a strong woman who finds pragmatic ways to herself and others and chooses a flower as a portrait whose blossom resembles her real-life hairstyle and which reminds us of her exposure in many situations in life - as well as of her beauty, tenderness and vulnerability. A touching film about the challenges and apparently obvious elements of the construction of identity, self-image, social encounters and relationships. The film is a jewel that deconstructs the significance of the face for our culture by textual images and selfies and even bans on images and images of god in order to rebuild them together.

1st MuVi Prize endowed with 2.000 Euro

Oliver Pietsch for Limerence (Yves Tumor)

Germany 2018, 5’32”

Statement:

For us there were two clear winners in this varied and striking short list of music videos, a selection that was a pleasure to watch, think about and discuss together. Oliver Pietsch’s video for Yves Tumor’s Limerence received the maximum number of points from all three jurors. The concept immediately grabs the viewer’s attention and the immaculate execution holds it, at once rapturing and troubling the eye. The supercut of found cinematic or video material is not a new genre - watching Limerence, some will think of Christian Marclay’s The Clock for instance– but the triptych structure and the choice of material here makes the work fresh and original. Shower scenes in movies take us to cinema’s heart of strangeness – like the sex scene, there is a performance of intimacy, private moments shown that in normal life are screened off from general view. We delectate over the bodies of stars those familiar strangers. ‘Limerence’ is an obscure term for a state of infatuation that involves obsessive thoughts and fantasies – as a system the movies are in the business (literally) of inciting limerence in the public, and the same could be said about mainstream pop music  With some of the scenes used here either the prequel to violence against women – as with Psycho – or suggestive of the aftermath of  female-trauma, there is a subtle feminist subtext to the work that resonates with the present moment, But there are other elements to the montage that are idyllic or amusing or simply mysterious. The oversaturation of these images of vulnerability and exposure, raining down on our gaze like the drops of water from a showerhead, creates an effect that eerily blends the erotic, the disturbing, the touching and the invasive. Although the video could stand on its own as a provocative artwork, the gorgeousness of the image-flow complements Yves Tumor’s track perfectly.

2nd MuVi Prize endowed with 1.000 Euro

Ulrike Göken/Jo Zimmermann for Damenbartblick (Schlammpeitziger)

Germany 2017, 4’50”

Statement:

Damenbartblick, by Jo Zimmerman and Ulrike Göken, in collaboration with Kota Utka, stood out for its subtle play between stillness and motion. We loved its poetic and romantic feel, the tenderness and delicacy of the images with their use of organic materials, and appreciated the visual puns, the wit and playfulness of the juxtapositions. We also found the “meet cute” story behind the collaboration to be both charming and to speak to the possibilities opened up by the Internet for artistic encounters across distances and national borders.

MuVi-Jury 2018

DJ Hell, Germany

Marisa Olson, USA

Simon Reynolds, UK

MuVi Online Audience Award

chosen by online vote

500 €, sponsored by k.west Verlag

Jakob Grunert for Copyshop (Romano)

Germany 2018, 10’42”