72nd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 28 April – 3 May 2026
Omnibus films, Tom Chomont, Marran Gosov and more: programme highlights
The 72nd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen kicks off on 28 April, and alongside the competitions and the major Theme programme “based on true events?”, this year’s edition will feature a series of exceptional and rarely screened programmes focusing on specific themes and personalities. These include analogue film screenings in “What’s Left?”, “Tom Chomont” and “Collect, Talk, Show: Marran Gosov via Bernhard Marsch”, as well as omnibus films from this millennium in “Beyond Omnibus Film” and a film programme in memory of the recently deceased long-standing director of the International Competition, Hilke Doering.
Travelling Companions – Beyond Omnibus Film, 29 April – 2 May
A collection of short films by various directors, compiled into a ‘feature-length film’ – as a genre, the omnibus film leads a shadowy existence, even though it has been around since the 1930s. Since 2025, Oberhausen has been spotlighting this hybrid format between feature and short film with “Travelling Companions”. In 2026, the section is dedicated to films, predominantly made by multiple directors, produced in this millennium. The selection ranges from films that are comparatively closely aligned with the classic form of the omnibus film to those that experiment with other, more complex internal filmic structures. Six feature films, documentaries, essay films and experimental films from five countries offer a unique insight into the various structures of episodically organised films.
The films
Stadt als Beute (City as Prey), Miriam Dehne/Esther Gronenborn/Irene von Alberti, Germany 2005
World at Stake, Susanna Flock/Jona Kleinlein/Adrian Jonas Haim, Austria 2025
The Valley where LOAB Lives, Georg Tiller, Austria 2026
China Villagers Documentary Project, Nong Ke/Zhang Huancai/Wang Wei/Zhou Cengjia/Shao Yuzhen/Ni Lianghui/Sqrolma Tshe Ring/Jia Zhitan/ Fu Jiachong/Chujian Yi, China 2006
Final Flesh, Ike Sanders, USA 2009
Luminous Void: Docudrama, Rouzbeh Rashidi, Ireland 2019
What’s Left? Moles of the Archive, 29 and 30 April
“What’s Left?” explores the Oberhausen film archive with a particular focus on rebellious German cinema, in which the spirit of the Oberhausen Manifesto and the analytical thinking of the 1960s is palpable. This second instalment focuses on parallel developments in the Federal Republic’s foreign policy, with an emphasis on examples of international solidarity expressed through cinematic means.
In the first part, three films examine Germany’s role in the Cold War and its alliances with authoritarian regimes: Film 68 (Hannes Fuchs, 1968), Psalm 18 (Walter Heynowski, Gerhard Scheumann, 1974) and Nah beim Schah (Near the Shah, Wolfgang Landgraeber, 1977). The second part focuses on ‘internal foreign policy’. Three films by German filmmakers depict the situation of Turkish and Italian ‘guest workers’ in Germany during the 1970s and 1980s: Für ausländische und deutsche Arbeiter (For Foreign and German Workers, Kurt Rosenthal, Christine Trautmann, 1973), Alamanya, Alamanya – Germania, Germania (Hans-Andreas Guttner, 1979) and Rückkehr in die Türkei (Return to Turkey, Klaus Helle, Marianne Tampl, 1990). They are presented in dialogue with Üç Bölümlü Kisa Film (Short Film in Three Parts, Özcan Arca, Turkey 1978), which was made shortly before the military coup. This programme will be accompanied by Dr Ömer Alkin (Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach).
Tom Chomont, 30 April
Between 1962 and 1989, the late Chomont – who was part of the New York underground scene in the 1970s and 1980s – made around 40 short films: experimental works in which he combined colour positives and black-and-white negatives, lending his films a unique aura. Filmmaker and curator Jim Hubbard wrote: “‘Chomont’s films offer a lyric depiction of the ordinary world, but at the same time reveal an unabashedly spiritual and sexualised parallel universe. His incomparable technique of offsetting colour positive and high-contrast black-and-white negative creates a subtly beautiful, otherworldly aura.”
In this programme, the American filmmaker, restorationist and essayist Ross Lipman presents restored titles, primarily Tom Chomont’s early, masterful 16mm works, as well as two sound documents – a restoration project that highlights the challenges that arise when an artist has worked with his material in a way that was specific to photochemical film.
Ross Lipman: The Archival Impermanence Project, 30 April
Following the screening of Tom Chomont’s films, Ross Lipman will present his latest book at Oberhausen: The Archival Impermanence Project (2025), a collection of case studies in film restoration from the early days of cinema to the present day. Practical examples, rare archival documents, essays, numerous illustrations and appendices make it an indispensable resource for film scholars and archivists.
Ross Lipman was head film restorer at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. His restorations include Barbara Loden’s Wanda, Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles, the Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, as well as works by Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Shirley Clarke, Kenneth Anger and many others. In 2008, he was awarded the Anthology Film Archives’ ‘Preservation Honors’ prize and has won the ‘Heritage Award’ from the American National Society of Film Critics three times.
Collect, Talk, Show: Marran Gosov via Bernhard Marsch, 2 and 3 May
A double tribute to the Cologne-based film- and cinema-maker Bernhard Marsch (1962–2025) and the director Marran Gosov (1933–2021). Between 1965 and 1975, Gosov made 27 short films and five feature-length films, some of the wittiest and wisest German works of his time. Marsch took them under his wing, preserved them in his archive and brought them to the world’s attention at every opportunity – as a collector of analogue copies, which he often saved from destruction, and as a tireless seeker in the niches of film history. Oberhausen is screening ten of these films across two programmes.
Hilke Films, 2 May
A film programme in honour of Hilke Doering, the long-standing director of the International Competition at Oberhausen, who passed away in 2025, compiled by colleagues and friends. Nine works from the competitions since 2003 that were particularly close to Hilke Doering’s heart and for which she fought during the selection screenings – documentaries, animations, experimental films, music films and a children’s film.
Oberhausen, 23 April 2026
Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, T +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de