Here's this years Selection Committee for the German Competition 2023:

Florian Fischer, born 1981 in Tübingen, studied communication design, photography and visual studies. He was a participant in the Werkleitz Media Master Class and Berlinale Talents. In 2017, he was a fellow at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles and currently works as an author and media artist in Leipzig and Hamburg. His film "Umbra" won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlinale 2019 and screened in the German Competition of the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg in the same year.

Nadine Mayer moved from Stuttgart to Hamburg to study for her Master's degree in Culture and Media Management. In 2011 she started working for the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg at the info counter, was responsible for the film market and joined the selection team for the German Competition in 2014. At the same time, she got to know the artist group "A Wall is a Screen", with whom she travels the country to project short films on walls. Her main job also revolves around moving images, most recently as a producer of documentary films for TV.

Stine Wangler studied at Leuphana University in Lüneburg and at Glamorgan University in Wales. She wrote her thesis in cultural studies about short films on the internet. Since 2012 she has been working at the Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg and is responsible for world sales and purchase of licenses for short films. On the side, she occasionally works as a photographer. Since 2013, she has been a viewing member of the German Competition at the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg.

David Kleingers is head of the digital department and strategic development at the DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum. As a film journalist and historian, he has published numerous articles and book chapters on German, European and international cinema. He is also curator of the Maple Movies Festival, dedicated to contemporary Canadian film.

Deniz Şimşek is a filmmaker and media artists living in Berlin. Having studied film in Istanbul at MSFAU, she is currently studying art and media at the UdK Berlin, under Prof. Thomas Arslan. Her works have been shown internationally in exhibitions, art and film festivals, including the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Kasseler Dokfest, European Media Art Festival and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg. Deniz is part of the 5th edition of the Federal Association AG Kurzfilm and German Films’ Emerging Artists program.

We proudly present: Our selection committee for the 2023 International Competition!

In her artistic films and video works, Vanessa Nica Mueller deals with questions of individual and collective memory, the human being in relation to urban space and nature, as well as with the tension between the familiar and alienation. She studied film and time-based media at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and at the École supérieure d'art Marseille. In addition to realizing and producing her own films, she works as a lecturer in the field of film education. In 2018 she was in Lebanon for an extended film research as part of a grant from the Goethe Institute and in 2021 she was a guest at Urbane Künste Ruhr as Artist in Residence 2021.

Sarnt Utamachote (ษาณฑ์ อุตมโชติ) is a nonbinary filmmaker, curator and co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German Thai diaspora with whom they curated the un.thai.tled Film Festival Berlin and Beyond the kitchen: Stories from the Thai Park. The video installation I Am Not Your Mother (2020) was exhibited at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the short film Soy Sauce (2020) was screened at OutFest Fusion LA, Xposed Berlin and Queer East London 2021, among others.

Nora Molitor studied Intercultural Communication, Spanish and History. She works for international literature, film and theater projects and festivals, including the Max Ophüls Festival, the Berlin International Literature Festival, the German-French stage festival Perspectives and Berlinale Forum Expanded. Jury activities for the FCDEP (Paris), BIEFF (Bucharest) and Encounters (Bristol). She also supervises the Border Crossers Program of the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Literary Colloquium Berlin. She is co-founder of transdemo e.V., member of LaborBerlin e.V. and curates and coordinates interdisciplinary projects in Berlin's independent scene.

Alejo Franzetti was born in Buenos Aires. He is a member of the selection committee of Berlinale Shorts and of Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg. He graduated in Film-Direction at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires and was Meisterschüler by Thomas Arslan at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. He has made films of different lengths, such as “El contrabajo” (short), “La destrucción del orden vigente” (feature), “Panke” (medium length). His work has been shown at venues such as Torino International Film Festival, Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Festival Márgenes, Entrevues Belfort, Bafici, Anthology Film Archives. He was co-founder and programmer of INVASION, the Argentine film festival in Berlin . He has also engaged in formative projects such as Talents Buenos Aires, Fakultät Null/Interflugs, and Cinema en curs.

Theresa George studied ethnology, political science and journalism at the University of Leipzig and has since been working as a freelance film anthropologist between cultural theory and film (mediation). She teaches Visual Anthropology, works for film festivals (Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Kasseler DokFest…), conceives film series / lectures / installations in diverse collaborations and co-developed numerous film projects. Currently, her main interest lies in filmmaking and film reception in the former GDR of the 1990s, which she intends to deepen by developing the artistic research VIDEO2089.

Sebastian Markt studied history in Vienna and Berlin, worked among other things in art house cinemas and has been working as a film critic for about ten years. He is a founding member of the main association Cinephilie, where he is primarily involved in the field of cultural film education. As a curator and festival programmer, Sebastian Markt is also active for the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg and the junge dokfest Kassel. Since September 2022 Sebastain is the new head of the Generation section of the Berlinale.

Maike Mia Höhne is a German film director, film curator, professor of film, mother of two children. She lives and works in Hamburg. From 2007 to 2019, she played a key role in shaping the profile of the short film section Berlinale Shorts at the Berlin International Film Festival as curator and director. In 2019, she took over as artistic director at Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg. Since 2019, she has been a professor at the University of Applied Science Europe at the Hamburg Campus in the Department of Art & Design for the Film program.

Felix Piatkowski, born in Rostock, 15 years in Hamburg studying media culture, working at the Medienzentrum, in the cinema and since 2008 at the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg. Moved to Berlin in 2017 and turned to psychoanalysis, but never turned his back on the short film festival and has now been there for 16 editions.

Anna Feistel studied Literature Art and Media Studies at University of Konstanz and Sapienza Università di Roma. Her passion for short films ignited many years ago organizing a student short film festival in a communal cinema. Since 2016 she has worked in several positions at Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg. She is a member of the selection committee and programme coordinator of Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg.

We are very pleased to announce the winners of the 38th Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg!

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Jury: Edwin, Florian Fischer, Andrea Lissoni, Jyoti Mistry, Caroline Monnet

HAMBURG SHORT FILM AWARD (3.000€):
Pavel Mozhar - Handbook
Jury Statement: "Political and social violence continues to dominant our lives and screens. The challenge is how to create representations of human atrocities without reproducing the spectacle of violence. Set in a sterile environment of a small room, that replicates the size of a holding cell, the testimony and experiences of incarcerated activists is recounted through a set of sobering instructions of staged physical brutality. This documentary of reenactments pushes the boundaries of the genre by employing a clinical eye on violence. The gaps demand that an audience complete the visual representation in their own imagination and this leaves one with a haunting and chilling feeling that endures long after the film is over. For cinematic excellence and a film that creates a signature language to expose contemporary political and civil violence in society through a manual of instructions for state practice as violence, the winner is: Handbuch by Pavel Mozhar."

DEFRAMED AWARD (2.000€):
Maria Estela Paiso - Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol (It's Raining Frogs Outside)
Jury statement: "A contemporary generation is dealing with increased mental health concerns, emotions of entrapment and isolation where socio-political concerns are replaced by identity politics. Using a memorable breath of haptic and tactile images and innovative animation techniques this film is a deeply emotive exploration of feeling trapped by the inner demons of social expectations and one’s own desires. Even though the film offers a dark exploration of isolation, its balance of playful counterpoints is a poetic expression of the vulnerabilities of a young generation. The Deframed Award for an artistic film goes to: Maria Estela Paiso for Ampangabagat Nin Talakba Ha Likol – It’s raining frogs outside."

HAMBURG SHORT FILM CANDIDATE FOR THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS:
Leonor Noivo - Madrugada (Dawn)
Jury Statement: "Cycles of labour: invisible labour of women’s work, the cleaning of homes and the endless routines of daily life which are often the unseen, and the unspoken parts of women’s lives that are passed on in generations. How do daughters make peace with their mother’s lives in which they have watched and witnessed the sacrifices mothers make in the name of love and protection? In an exceptionally raw and daring film that combines several genres, this docu-fiction is an exploration of the connections between women, labour, and desires. This intimate portrait of a generation of women unfolds the corrupted transmission of communication of unresolved feelings of loss. The jury selection for the EU award is: Leonor Noivo’s Madrugada - Dawn."

SPECIAL MENTION:
Evgenia Arbugaeva, Maxim Arbugaev - Haulout)
Jury statement: "A radical act of commitment and stunning photography brings us to one of the most urgent socio-political circumstances of our times. The Anthropocene remains the crisis of our epoch but this film neither succumbs to hysteria nor to the commercial manipulation of information of climate change. Instead in an exceptional and deeply affecting observation we are shown directly the vulnerability of nature at the hands of humans. At once lyrical, but profoundly disciplined – this film captures kinship by creating an intense interspecies dialogue that carefully balances the contradiction of being enclosed in a small, confined space with the vastness of nature. In a patient and committed process this film is a testament to cinema’s capacity to take us to far flung places on the globe but which demands our urgent attention because it effects the immediacy of our lives and futures. For a poignant posthumanist film we give special mention to: Haulout by Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev."

GERMAN COMPETITION

Jury: Andreas Fock, Matt Lloyd, Genne Spears

JURY AWARD (2.000 €):
Sylvia Schedelbauer - Oh, Butterfly!
Jury statement: "Waves roll under an echoing lament for a lover across the ocean. The jury awards a multi-layered work of exhaustive research that places family history in dialogue with one of the most frequently reproduced works of twentieth century opera. The filmmaker uses archive footage organically to create a vivid and ornate palimpsest, touching on themes of race, Empire, migration and performance. This is a work of both rigour and excess; we applaud the filmmaker’s ambition, sensitivity and mastery of her material. The German Short Film Award goes to Oh, Butterfly! by Sylvia Schedelbauer."

SPECIAL MENTION
Mona Keil - Saft
Jury Statement: “To a film that efficiently summarizes a pandemic experience through a haunting, spellbinding and animated internal world. The special mention goes to an intense and well-crafted piece of unforgettable images: Saft by Mona Keil.”

TRIPLE AXEL COMPETITION (1.000€):

Kumaran Herold - Shining
Der Publikumspreis wird von der Hamburgischen Kulturstiftung unterstützt.

ARTE AWARD:

Morgan Quaintance - A Human Certainty
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 (1500€):

Daniel Aguirre - Pink Rider
The Audience Award is presented with kind support of Play Studios. It is awarded to a film from the International or the German Competition.

MO&FRIESE AWARDS:

Friese Award: Ursula Ulmi – IDODO, special mention: John Croezen – Fantastischer Flugwettkampf
Mo Award: Marcel Barelli – In der Natur, special mention: Wassili Franko & Paul Spengemann – Pocket Call
Neon Award: Laura Wadha – Born in Damaskus, special mention: Mark Albiston – Datsun
Nomination ECFA Short Film Award: Britt Raesh, Luce und der Stein
GIB MIR 5! Competition: Frieda Durago – Sei keine Flasche, Filmkids.ch – Le Train, Jessica, Leenay & Fatma – Können Katzen fliegen