71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 29 April – 4 May 2025
New programmes at the 71st Oberhausen Festival
In 2025, Oberhausen is launching four new series: Omnibus Films, Shoah Outtakes, Moles of the Archive and the Distributors’ Collection
Like no other format, short film is capable of uniting political themes with new and unusual artistic approaches. Throughout its history, the Oberhausen festival has presented and discussed works in which these two aspects are united, in which artistic and political concerns permeate and strengthen each other. The 71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the first under the leadership of Madeleine Bernstorff and Susannah Pollheim, is presenting three new long-term series that take up this theme from different perspectives, as well as a re-structured showcase of international short film distributors.
New: Travelling Companions – Omnibus Films in Film History
Historically speaking, the omnibus (or anthology) film is the only “regular” commercial exploitation option open to short films. But even though the genre dates back to the 1930s and comprises around 100 productions, the omnibus film tends to lead an existence in the shadows of film history. “Travelling Companions”, compiled by film critic and curator Lukas Foerster, focuses on key motives, narrative and production-related aspects of the genre. Where, when and for whom did omnibus films become an interesting form of presentation? What subjects and interests are primarily served by the genre? Under what conditions do these productions become a relevant format – commercially and in other respects?
The first part of the series, entitled “Counter Glances”, focuses on West German omnibus films from the 1980s by predominantly female directors including Chantal Akerman, Maxi Cohen, Valie Export, Monika Funke Stern, Ebba Jahn, Ulrike Ottinger, Renate Sami or Helke Sander. Featured films in the four programmes are: Aus heiterem Himmel (Out of the Blue, 1982), Sieben Frauen – Sieben Sünden (Seven Women – Seven Sins, 1986), Die Gedächtnislücke. Filmminiaturen über den täglichen Umgang mit Gift (The Memory Gap. Film Miniatures About the Daily Handling of Poison, 1983) und Ama Zone (1983).
New: What’s Left? – Moles of the Archive
What does it mean to be politically left – and to be left in an archive? Film history begins with the cessation of labour – la sortie de l’usine – and the surveillance of the proletariat, since it was the owners of the factory, the Lumière brothers, who filmed this separating moment between labour and spare time. This symbolic origin forges an unbreakable bond between cinema and labour struggles.
In this spirit, “What’s Left” delves into our 16mm archive to honour films that ignited a spark of collective self-realization and solidarity in women, workers, and students. The two programmes will show a variety of West-German films that echo the spirit of 1968, including Für Frauen – 1. Kapitel (For Women – Chapter 1, Cristina Perincioli, 1971), Helfen können wir uns nur selbst (We Can Only Help Ourselves, Gardi Deppe, 1974), Maulwürfe der Revolution (Moles of the Revolution, Horst Schwaab, 1969) and Von der Revolte zur Revolution (From Revolt to Revolution, Filmemacher Cooperative Hamburg, Kurt Rosenthal, 1969).
New: The making of Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah”
A workshop event conceived by Christoph Hesse which takes a close look at the outtakes of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah to illuminate the film’s conception as a documentary and as an artwork as it unfolded in the process of its making. 210 hours of footage, the complete filmed material, have recently been made accessible – hitherto unknown interviews, testimonies of rescue and resistance, footage that was unusable for technical or legal reasons. To begin the series that is projected to run over several years, we will take a look at two very different examples: a long conversation with Inge Deutschkron, who survived the Holocaust in hiding in Berlin, as well as Lanzmann’s attempt to film Heinz Schubert, a member of the so-called “Einsatzgruppen” who resorted to violence and legal measures to prevent the production and inclusion of the material in Shoah.
New: Distributors’ Collection
This new format succeeds our Distributors’ Screenings. International distributors of experimental short film will continue to present works from their catalogues. The newly introduced focus, however, will not be exclusively on new acquisitions but also on older works, some of them newly accessible, from the distributors’ catalogues or archives. The first edition will present Arsenal (Germany), EYE Experimental (Netherlands), Filmform (Sweden) and sixpackfilm (Austria).
Accreditation deadline 2025: 23 April 2025
Accreditation
Oberhausen, 12 March 2025
Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, phone +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda(at)kurzfilmtage.de