Human NatureWoods and meadows have always been a popular backdrop for German shortfilm makers. This year however, flora and fauna are pushing into the centre of the action. Nature filmmakers examine what our relation with nature is like today and what liberties we are taking with it. Can our national forests still raise interest in us when challenged by elaborate international animal docuthrillers? How do birds get along in manmade urban environments? Killing and eating animals can be quite a farce, which makes us hope that mankind can be more than just slowly disappearing circles in the water surface.But it is also about human nature by itself, about the aggregations of the mind and the atrophy of the soul. A family makes our skins crawl even though they are quite harmless. Or aren’t they? We shake our heads in disbelief as wefollow the story of an unemployed man in the east. Wherever you turn your eyes, you see aberrations: Financial capitalism is breaking down men, sexuality has more to do with shame and misunderstandings than with lust and failureis too much to handle even for robots. All that has little to do with nature. And thus our discomfort only grows as we watch grandpa refuse to accept his grandson’s sexual orientation, as war and its consequences suddenly getreal and as we lose our articles of faith. But at least there are still a few things around which are as soothing as walking barefooted on a lush meadow: A slightly threadbare illusory world in the desert, a Greek in love and Electrobaby’s rescue.Naturally (sic!) you can get away from all the stuff that’s crawling and growing outside by retreating to your home with its pleasant ambient temperature and listen to the sounds of the construction work. Or you can stay in bedright away and have your dreams painted. Incidentally, regarding genres, there has been a lot of cross-pollination going on, and many of this year’s films can either be described as hybrids between narrative and documentary short or have mutated into downright experimental forms.We hope you will enjoy this trip into nature with the GermanCompetition.

Text: Sebastian Hofer

The Jury Award of the German Competition is worth 2,000 euros.

The Jury Award of the Pilsner Urquell Hamburg Night is worth 1,500 euros.

Anja Ellenberger:
Anja Ellenberger worked as a curator for off-galleries in Hamburg and several international film festivals. She is currently working at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, where she examines local film making in the 60s in cooperation with Hamburg University. She furthermore focuses on avant-garde films and artistic currents of the 1960s in Eastern and Central Europe.

Omer Fast:
Omer Fast is a visual artist and a film maker. He studied English literature and Visual Arts in New York and Boston and after graduation, he had been involved in over 150 international exhibitions, among them solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna. His works have won many awards and are represented in various international collections.

Sabine Holtgreve:
Sabine Holtgreve is an editor at the NDR, where is responsible for feature films, ›Tatort‹ and cinema productions. She had been the editor for ›Debüt im Dritten‹ at the SWR. She worked as a producer until 2011, among others for Wueste Film Ost. She was involved in many award winning debut works and cinema productions. She is a member of the German Film Academy and the Academy of Dramatic Arts.