International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
Hilmar Hoffmann would have turned 100 on 25 August
In memory of the founder of the Oberhausen Festival
The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen commemorates its founder Hilmar Hoffmann, who would have turned 100 on Monday, 25 August 2025. As a cultural politician and official, he dedicated his life to the motto “Culture for All” and founded numerous cultural initiatives and institutions, of which the Oberhausen Festival was the first and remains one of the best known. Founded by Hoffmann in 1954 as the West German Cultural Film Festival, it will take place for the 72nd time in 2026.
The beginnings of the Short Film Festival in the spirit of adult education
After Hoffmann became the youngest director of an adult education centre in Germany in Oberhausen in 1951 and, shortly afterwards, film consultant for the Adult Education Association, he developed the idea of a regular event for the presentation of films together with art historian Eva M. J. Schmid. In 1954, the first “West German Cultural Film Festival” took place, which later became the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Behind this was both the idea of adult education and that of democratisation after the Nazi era, which was less than ten years ago at the time. “In the spirit of Adorno, we tried to put film in the service of enlightenment in order to establish a new social and political consciousness,” Hoffmann explained in an interview on the 50th anniversary of the Festival in 2004.
The “red festival” and the way to the neighbour
In 1959, Hilmar Hoffmann changed the name of the festival to West German Short Film Festival in order to distance it from the term ‘cultural film,’ which had negative connotations due to its association with National Socialism. Under his leadership, the Festival also established its reputation as a political festival. Oberhausen earned a reputation for “backbone, integrity and foresight,” as Ronald and Dorothea Holloway wrote in their book on the 25th anniversary of the Festival. Under the motto “Weg zum Nachbarn” (Way to the Neighbour), introduced in 1958, the festival showed films from the Eastern Bloc that could not be seen anywhere else, and had to deal with officials from the Eastern Bloc countries as well as those from the West, who for a long time refused to provide federal funding for the “red festival.” In 1962, the Oberhausen Manifesto was proclaimed in Oberhausen, and in 1968, under Hoffmann, the festival experienced the scandal surrounding Hellmuth Costard's film Besonders wertvoll (Particularly Valuable), which led to a greater opening up to West German film productions.
In 1970, Hoffmann left Oberhausen to become head of the cultural department in Frankfurt am Main, a position he held until 1990. From 1993 to 2001, he was president of the Goethe Institut. Hilmar Hoffmann died on 1 June 2018 in Frankfurt am Main. Hilmar Hoffmann remained connected to the Oberhausen Festival throughout his life, attending the 50th anniversary in 2004 and the 50th anniversary of the Oberhausen Manifesto in 2012. He was last in Oberhausen in 2016, two years before his death, for a panel discussion with his then successor Lars Henrik Gass.
In 2026, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen will celebrate its 72nd edition, mindful of the achievements of Hilmar Hoffmann, to whom the festival owes not only its existence, but also its commitment to aesthetic quality and political openness, which still characterises the spirit of the Oberhausen Festival today.
Oberhausen, 22 August 2025
Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, T +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de