Special Programmes 2008
It doesn't always have be about competing.
This year, after the recent programmes on Iran and Lebanon, the 24th Hamburg International ShortFilmFestival will take a closer look at Israel, the third country in the Middle East which boasts a thriving short film scene. For quite a while now, Israeli films have been well represented in the Festival’s international competitions. Nine film schools regularly submit their graduates’ films, a staggering number for a country only marginally larger than Wales and with fewer inhabitants than London. By the same token, the country’s independent video art and film scene has also been attracting a lot of attention over recent years. Films in five programmes of Yoffi! Yalla Bye. – Shorts from Israel touch upon the cultural and economic issues of immigration, questions about the ownership and use of land, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the militarization of society, the country’s 60-year history marked by wars and internal struggle, or the experience of the Holocaust.
The Retrospective: Münchner Gruppe: In the beginning, the Münchner Gruppe consisted of Rudolf Thome, Klaus Lemke, Max Zihlmann, Peter Nestler, Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet. In the 1960ies, they protested against the rejection of their films and the nepotic academism of the "Young German Film". Merely they were a group of guys who made films together for a while. Unless they were going to the cinema together, chasing chicks, playing pinball or drifting through the day like the protagonists of their films, that is. That's what it was all about: Leading lives that were congruent, or at least compatible, with the films they were making, and vice versa.
A nostalgic look at people’s vision of the future can be taken in Today: Tomorrow's Yesterday. Cities on the moon, household robots and flying cars? Well, rather internet, mobile phones and American Idol instead. Another programme will introduce a number of aficionados of fields of their own choice, aka experts. From chicken sexers to terrorism experts - the supposedly real life is full of unintentionally hilarious characters.
And as the world is getting more and more complicated, more and more experts are needed. Or at least they are popping up everywhere, like mushrooms in a cow pasture. And those experts are not just giving statements or writing papers, but making short films as well. A selection of these experts can be seen in On the Boon and Bane of Experts.
