71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 29 April – 4 May 2025
Open Call for Applications: the Oberhausen Seminar 2025, led by Galit Eilat
Applications are now open for the Oberhausen Seminar 2025, an experimental course exploring contemporary artists’ moving image practice in the context of a renowned international film festival. The 2025 Seminar will be led by researcher, writer and curator Galit Eilat.
The Seminar, which takes place for the 11th time, is designed primarily for young and upcoming professionals. It is open to international artists, filmmakers, curators and researchers who work with moving images and in particular with artist films. Efforts will be made to create a diverse grouping of participants from different geographic regions, and to create a balanced mix of artists, curators and critics. All Seminar activities will take place in English. The number of participants is limited to 25.
For five days during the festival, the participants will meet daily to watch films and engage in in-depth conversations. Meetings will alternate between group conversations responding to a specific programme or topic, and guest conversations with curators, filmmakers, artists or distributors.
A key focus of the 2025 Seminar will be conflict. The Seminar will examine conflict as a defining concept central to forming cultures, societies, histories, and everyday life. It will be considered as a concept containing the potential for (political) change. In addition, the role of speculative histories and political imagination as generators of political acts will be explored.
Application
Applications will be accepted until 28 February 2025. Applicants are asked to include a description of their work, their motivation and examples of previous projects if relevant to apply for participation. Selected applicants will be informed in March 2025. The Seminar fee of Euro 250 (excl. transaction fees) covers all Seminar sessions plus a festival pass, access to all screenings, events and talks during the Festival, as well as refreshments and lunch for the Seminar period (five days).
Application form:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdiGKVK6SMckUd659NfUOOPjPqo4YvxPmynsQEL94Cx0Fypg/viewform
Contact Seminar: seminar(at)kurzfilmtage.de
Galit Eilat
Galit Eilat, a researcher, writer, and curator, is known for her projects that aim to create conditions for collective encounters and experiences with a critical perspective on the existing status quo. Central to these projects is her unwavering belief in the power of art to spark social imagination, driving the dissemination of knowledge. Eilat was the founding director of the Israeli Center for Digital Art and the inaugural artistic director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne. She co-founded Maarav, an online arts and culture magazine and co-initiated the traveling seminars Liminal Spaces, a platform for joint work and dialogue between Palestinians, Israelis, and international artists. She curated and co-curated projects such as VideoZone 4 – Video Art Biennial in Tel Aviv, the Polish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, the 32nd October Salon in Belgrade, and the 31st Sao Paulo Biennial.
Her current research focuses on extreme environments and future ecologies. In addition to her curatorial work, Eilat teaches and has written extensively about art and politics. Eilat received the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College for the 2017-18 academic year.
Oberhausen, 30.10.2024
Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, phone +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda(at)kurzfilmtage.de