Award Winners 2023

We are very pleased to announce the winners of the 39th Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg!

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Jury: Nawar Al Qassimi, Patrick Holzapfel, Adina Pintilie, Emilie Poirier, Yulia Serdyukova

HAMBURG SHORT FILM AWARD:

Enrique Pedráza-Botero, Faye Tsakas - Alpha Kings

Jury Statement: "We would like to give the main award ex aequo to a film that depicts emptiness without artifice in a very new contemporary setting. The filmmakers are bringing us into the world of online financial domination without judgment while maintaining a healthy and critical distance from their protagonists. Through online videos, live streams and hand-held camera moments, themes like sexuality, hyper masculinity, erotic labor, power dynamics and gender performativity are addressed in a very agile and delicate way. The Best Short Film of the competition goes to Alpha Kings : an observational film that skilfully presents the dichotomy between the Masters and their subs in their transactional relationship and the loneliness in the everyday life of some American teenagers."

Karla Crncevic - Wild Flowers

Jury Statement: "We would like to give the main award ex aequo to a film that touched us with a dialogue between a daughter and a father about a video he recorded thirty years ago documenting the traces of war at the family’s house. What seems rather simple at first sight opens up different layers of memories, both personal and collective, as well as a longing for family and home, all overlapping like the petals of the eponymous flower. In a time in which the violence and scars of wars seem to swallow every hope, the film makes us realize that the appearance of beautiful flowers growing out of ruins on an old videotape can mean the world."

DEFRAMED AWARD:

Douwe Dijkstra - Neighbour Abdi

Jury Statement: "We would like to give the Deframed award to Neighbour Abdi, a film that presents a harsh reality in a unique and unconventional way. In this film, producer Douwe and Abdi work together to recreate scenes from Abdi’s hometown of Mogadishu. The film takes us from the studio to the ruined city showing us the process of making, collaboration, memory and trust between the two individuals. An omnipresent green screen appears and disappears as we move through the film; a reminder of the trauma that we carry with us as individuals."

HAMBURG SHORT FILM CANDIDATE FOR THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS:

Joseph Wilson - I can see the sun but I can’t feel it yet

Jury Statement: "In the spirit of Hamburg Short Film Festival's core curatorial concept - to acknowledge and support unconventional and thought-provoking works, which challenge the boundaries of cinema as a medium, our nomination for the European Film Awards goes to a conceptual and performative tour de force, an irreverent celebration of freedom - both the freedom to decide over our bodies, identities and loves, and that of cinema as the language of our deepest longings and shadows. Shifting unpredictably, and sensuously, between memory and dream, pain and breathtaking beauty, incisive satire and raging poetry, the film is a wild and life-affirming tribute to the queer body’s power and beauty. To paraphrase the filmmaker “a monument to youth and love within us”. The European Film Academies Short film nominee is “I Can See The Sun, But I cannot feel it yet”, by Joseph Wilson."

SPECIAL MENTION:

Shuli Huang - Will you look at me

Jury Statement: "??There are many different ways to deal with prejudices and the wounds they cause. This film shows how oppressive systems hurt all sides of this vicious circle. While a son turns to his mother in search of recognition and acceptance, healing is hardly possible, but shared pain and mutual compassion create a space where love persists against all odds. The special mention of the competition goes to a film that explores the complexities of family connections in a way that is both strikingly intimate – and universally human: Will You Look At Me by Shuli Huang."

GERMAN COMPETITION

Jury: Clara Helbig, Dani Rosenberg, Ulrich Ziemons

JURY AWARD:

Rita Macedo - Farewell recording for an observer of an unknown time and place
Jury Statement: "Set in the liminal wetland space between the real and the virtual, this film is a highly inventive sci-fi eco-dystopia. Touching on planetary collapse and the outsourcing of intelligence, the director zooms into urgent issues of the now and sculpts an equally seductive and menacing vision that functions as a warning at crossroads."

SPECIAL MENTION

Camille Tricaud, Franziska Unger - Slow down the fall

Jury Statement: “This intimate drama, virtuously staged against the backdrop of an imposing landscape, questions the sacrifices we are prepared to make for personal success – whether in life or in sports. A cinematic tour de force, that at its core is a search for truth."

TRIPLE AXEL COMPETITION:

Simon Ellis - The Terminator

The Audience Award is supported by the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung.

ARTE AWARD:

Moe Myat May Zarchi - The Altar

The competition spanning ARTE Short Film Award consists of the purchase of one film (up to 6,000 euros) and its subsequent screening in the »Kurzschluss« programme by ARTE, the Franco-German cultural TV channel.

AUDIENCE AWARD:

Fariba Haidari - Leila

The Audience Award is awarded to a film from the International or the German Competition.

MO&FRIESE AWARDS:

Friese-Award: Marjolaine Perreten – Pebble Hill , lobende Erwähnung: Anne-Sophie Gousset – To be sisters
Mo-Award: Samy Sidali – P.D.O., lobende Erwähnung: Andrew Brand – Buzz
Neon-Award: Justine Martin – Oasis, lobende Erwähnung: Kantarama Gahigiri – Terra Mater

Nomination ECFA Short Film Award: Nathan Clement – The truth about Alvert, the last Dodo