In the presence of numerous filmmakers, the award ceremony of the 41st Kurzfilm Festival and the 27th Young Short Film Festival Hamburg Mo&Friese took place on Saturday, June 7, 2025. Prizes worth a total of €18,500 celebrated the diversity of the short film format. Being John Smith received two awards.

The €3,000 Hamburg Short Film Award was presented by the five-member jury of the International Competition to "Being John Smith" by British filmmaker John Smith. He also received the Audience Award, worth €1,500.

In the jury’s statement, it says:
„Though the film seems to be about how one’s name can be a disadvantage and create long-lasting prejudice in life, it is also much more. Rather, it is a witty, moving, humorous meditation on aging, life, politics, change, mortality and the role of art and the artist over time. Using economical means with no-nonsense inventiveness, the film is coherent, concise and complex all at once, flowing like gentle waves throughout.With self-deprecating gusto, but no exaggeration or narcissism, Smith creates a portrait of dignified fragility and vulnerability, but also resilience. ‚Being John Smith‘ is at once personal as it is highly political, reflecting as it does, on the current moment of dystopian disbelief as the world ploughs forward in high-capitalist mode, increasing polarization and atomization. Despite the disheartening socio-political subtext, the film at once affirms the belief in the emancipatory potential of culture and community.“

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Hamburg Short Film Award
Being John Smith – John Smith, United Kingdom 2024

Deframed Award
The Moving Garden – Inês Lima, Portugal 2024

Hamburg Short Film Candidate For The European Film Awards
I believe the portrait saved me – Alban Muja, Kosovo/Netherlands, 2025

Special Mention
Water Sports – Whammy Alcazaren, Philippines 2024

GERMAN COMPETITION

Jury Award
Ich hätte lieber einen anderen Film gemacht – Suse Itzel, Deutschland 2024

Special Mention I
The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for Mabel Dove – Nnenna Onuoha, Ghana/Deutschland, 2024

Special Mention II
Ceasefire – Jakob Krese, Germany/Italy/Slovenia 2025

OTHER AWARDS

Triple Axel Audience Award
JAH! – Madli Lääne, Estonia 2024

Audience Award
Being John Smith – John Smith, United Kingdom 2024

Arte Short Film Award
Rain Falls Still – Đăng Tùng Bạch, Australia/Vietnam 2024

KODAK Award
Okay Keskidee! Let Me See Inside – Rhea Storr, United Kingdom 2025

KODAK Award – Special Mention
Archipelago of Earthen Bones – to Bunya, Malena Szlam, Canada/Australia/Chile 2024

YOUNG SHORT FILM FESTIVAL HAMBURG MO&FRIESE

Friese Award
Hufen auf Kufen – Ignas Meilūnas, Lithuania 2024

Friese Award Special Mention
Wasserschweine – Alfredo Soderguit, France/Chile/Uruguay 2024

Mo Award
Akababuru – Irati Dojura, Columbia 2025

Mo Award Special Mention
Was um uns herum geschieht – Krystsina Ramanava, Czech Republic 2023

NEON Award
Neun Tage im August – Ella Knorz, Germany 2024

NEON Award Special Mention
Storytelling – Nils Hedinger, Swizerland 2024

ECFA-Preis
Wir drehen einen Film – Tota Alves, Portugal 2024

ECFA-Preis Lobende Erwähnung
Dragfox – Lisa Ott, United Kingdom 2024

In OPEN SPACE, the exhibition space of Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, we are presenting the laser show "spin jump crawl climb dream bite hunt" by Hamburg-based artist Paul Spengemann.

"The being that only occasionally comes to the surface here is attempting to build a world – a world made of unstable connections, in which a longing for community becomes as evident as a sense of estrangement in a place governed by peculiar rules of play." – Merle Radtke

When multiplex cinemas first opened in Germany during the 1990s, a trip to the cinema was often accompanied by a grand laser show. Fog would rise before the film began, and flashes of light would streak across the auditorium. Viewers would lose themselves in the space; at times, the space itself seemed to dissolve. Bottomless. Paul Spengemann, a highly acclaimed artist, works in the exact opposite manner. He strips the story down to light itself and, through this light, tells a story that each person who experiences it sees, feels, and interprets differently. Once, spiders wove large webs across Hamburg’s HafenCity, enveloping it. Spengemann has long been fascinated by these arachnids.

For spin jump crawl climb dream bite hunt, he created a character who, with the help of the thread it spins, shares its emotions with the audience in short scenes. Through the sharply focused beam of the laser, the artist conveys the experiences of a creature that not only spins, jumps, crawls, climbs, bites and hunts, but also dreams – revealing its fears and desires. A narrative suspended between abstraction and storytelling. As in cinema, understanding emerges through the eye itself. But now: not loud, not monumental – rather tender, quiet, idiosyncratic. In doing so, Spengemann opens the black box to an experience that allows the audience to become the authors of what they perceive. His spider defies gravity with ease – weaving, scrambling, running, shaping. We sense the creature – and perhaps it senses us in return. Could that be why it is descending now, gaining speed?

OPEN SPACE: spin jump crawl climb dream bite hunt
Daily from 11 am, free entry
Festival Center Post

Here are this year's juries! ❤️

International Competition

In the International Competition, a five-member jury awards the Hamburg Short Film Award, endowed with 3,000 euros, and the Deframed Award, endowed with 2,000 euros. It also awards the Hamburg candidate for the "European Short Film" award category of the European Film Academy.

Yalda Afsah, artist and filmmaker
Zohra Ait El Jamar, head of Hayy Cinema, Jeddah
Alecio Araci, filmmaker
Katerina Gregos, director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
Ayhan Salar, filmmaker, author & curator

German Competition

The German Competition Award is endowed with 2,000 euros and is decided by a three-member jury.

Mariam Mekiwi, filmmaker and film editor
Dietmar Schwärzler, Managing Director sixpackfilm, Vienna
Laura Stöckler, writer and researcher

Kodak Film Award

New this year: The KODAK Film Prize, awarded for best analog film.

Christopher Gorski, interdisciplinary artist
Holger C. Schwaerzel, KODAK
Zamarin Wahdat, filmmaker

ARTE Short Film Award

ARTE awards the ARTE Short Film Prize across all competitions, combined with a purchase of the film.

Catherine Colas, ARTE
Laurence Rilly, ARTE

Sometimes it’s love at second sight… We’re having a flea market and want you to be part of it! Pack up your favorite things from yesterday and sell them right at our festival centre POST! Clothes and curiosities will find a new home with us.

You want to take part and sell? Great! Just send us an email: antwort@shortfilm.com. Everyone else is welcome to take a stroll and have a good time. The disco van is briefed and playing records! Coffee and fun drinks are available at the bar, and there’s cake too!

FLEA-MARKET
Sunday, June 8, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Kaltenkirchener Str. 1-3, 22769 Hamburg
Outside if the weather is fine

Info for vendors: Parking is available in the surrounding streets, but many of the parking spaces are reserved exclusively for local residents. Please bring your own tables and clothes rails. Second hand clothes and small items are welcome, please do not sell new items. We cannot accept any liability for goods, personal property, etc.

Since its inception, we, the team of Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, have seen our festival as a space of artistic freedom and freedom of expression, of critical debate and encounters characterised by mutual respect.

We are publishing this statement as a reaction to a climate which is increasingly marked by division and pressure, particularly within the German cultural sector. This has led to a palpable restriction of agency for institutions and cultural workers. We strongly oppose politically motivated interference by third parties in programming decisions as well as demands for background checks on potential participants.

We take a clear stance against all forms of group-related misanthropy, such as ableism, ageism, anti-Muslim hatred, anti-Semitism*, discrimination of LGBTQIA+ individuals, classism, racism and sexism, as well as against all forms of physical and verbal violence. Creating and maintaining conditions that foster these principles requires ongoing, shared efforts and proactive, self-reflective behaviour from everyone involved in the festival. Texts such as the present one are no substitute for this essential work, though they do offer the opportunity to take a conscious position both internally and externally.

Our scene is diverse. Our actions as political beings can take on different forms, whether loud and explicit, or in the background and implicit.
Even though we as a festival are very keen on an exchange – as difficult as it can be – we respect the decision of all those who have opted to suspend their co-operation with German institutions in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We join the urgent calls for a lasting, just peace in Palestine and Israel, in Lebanon and in Syria. We acknowledge that these goals can only be achieved through the enforcement of international law, the possibility of national self-determination and respect for state sovereignty and international law.

We want to preserve Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg as a place that reflects the diversity of artistic perspectives and attitudes, so that we can continue to share different experiences with one another.

Last updated in May 2025. This text was formulated on the basis of the Code of Ethics of the European Media Art Festival (EMAF). We endorse the words of our colleagues and would like to thank them for laying this groundwork.

*According to the working definition of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/)

Under the 2025 motto „Mission Impossible!“, we asked for your films about failure. And there was a lot of it! Here is the best of impossibilities in a program of 25 films under 3 minutes:

Basert på en sann historie (Based on a True Story), Ola Røyseland, Norway, 2025
Boy meets Girl, Joey Arand, Germany, 2025
Cannot Sleep!, Yingjie Zhou, Japan/China 2024
Challenges of a Solitary Mind, Astrid Rothaug, Austria, 2025
Crossing No.: 2, Andrej Polukord, Lithuania, 2023
Fish & Trips, Amy Bruchner & Marius Lübke, Germany, 2024
FMT 8, Antje Seeger, Germany, 2024
Forgive Us Our Sin and Cos, Paulina Maria Reineke, Germany, 2024
How to Stop Smoking Without Losing Your Head, Gieso Ristau, Germany, 2025
Jah! (Yes!), Madli Lääne, Estonia, 2024
Kein Trailer (No Trailer), Henri van Hettinga Voß, Germany, 2025
Längtan (Longing), Lars Odermatt, Switzerland, 2025
L'avant-dernière fois que j'ai fait caca dans mes culottes (The Second-to-Last Time I Pooped my Pants), Sébastien Landry, Canada, 2024
Mischen Impossible, Alexandra Kwart, Germany, 2025
Mission: Imfroschible (Mission Imphibious), Felix Dierich, Germany, 2025
Missive Imperfect, Kalle Anker, Germany, 2025
Paul Jannowski, Björn Warns, Germany, 2025
Pigeons, Seagulls and Other Birds, Holger Mohaupt - Time Echo Collective, United Kingdom, 2025
The Impossible Mission, Nicolas Gebbe, Germany, 2025
Tögethår, Rich Farris, United Kingdom, 2024
Trash, Holga Rosen, Germany, 2025
Triple Again, Shaian Ebrahimi, Iran 2025
When Doves Try, Thalia de Jong, Netherlands/Belgium, 2023
Willi macht rüber (Willi Defects), Sabine von Bassewitz, Germany, 2025
Wischen Impossible (Vision Impossible), Dorit Kiesewetter & Carsten Knoop, Germany, 2025

Film selection by Sebastian Apel, Axel Behrens, Silja Ebeling, Lisa Hoppe, Anna Leimbrinck & Klara Schmidt.

Filmstill: Triple Again, Shaian Ebrahimi

With 23 hand-picked films, the German Competition presents a red-hot selection of current national short film. 🔥 More urgent than ever, five programs show very personal views on major universal and social issues - from human and inhuman behaviour, remembering and forgetting to road trips through time and space.

A RECONNAISSANCE, Stefan Kruse, Germany/Denmark, 2025
A Thousand Waves Away, Helena Wittmann, Germany, 2025
A War I've Never Seen, Fariba Buchheim, Germany, 2023
The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for Mabel Dove, Nnenna Onuoha, Ghana/Germany, 2024
Augen auf, Augen zu. (EYES WIDE, EYES SHUT), Leonie Minor, Germany, 2024
Butterfly Kiss, Zohar Dvir, Germany, 2024
Ciao Ciao Guo, Ying Chen, Taiwan/Germany, 2024
Cómo ser Pehuén Pedre (How to be Pehuén Pedre), Federico Luis, Argentina/Germany, 2024
Die ganze Nacht (The Whole Night), Alejo Franzetti, Germany/Argentina/Burkina Faso, 2025
Die Stimme des Ingenieurs (The Engineer's Voice), André Siegers, Germany, 2024
Eigentlich wollte ich nicht lange bleiben (Actually, I didn't want to stay long), Andreas Grützner, Germany, 2025
Gelin, Ah Gelin, Can Ünlü, Germany, 2025
Hühnergarderobe (Chicken Wardrobe), Simon Dickel, Germany, 2025
Ich hätte lieber einen anderen Film gemacht (I would have liked to make a different film), Suse Itzel, Germany, 2024
Invisible Countdown, Amir Ovadia Steklov, Germany, 2024
Mother's Letter, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Germany, 2025
One Hundred Years Later, Christoph Girardet, Germany, 2025
PREKID VATRE (CEASEFIRE), Jakob Krese, Germany/Italy/Slowenia, 2025
Les Rites de Passage (Les Rites de Passage), Florian G.M. Fischer & Johannes Krell, Germany, 2024
rückblickend betrachtet (in retrospect), Daniel Asadi Faezi & Mila Zhlutenko, Germany, 2025
The Garden Had Not Disappeared, Helena Aljona Kyn, Germany, 2025
The Wolf, Naama Heiman, Germany, 2024
Whether Here or There, Amir Naumann, Germany, 2024

Film selection by Francesca Bertin, Lars Frehse, Leonie Kellein, David Kleingers & Nadine Mayer.

Filmstill: The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for Mabel Dove, Nnenna Onuoha

The selection committee has chosen – and we love to share! As of now, all films in International Competition 2025 are out and ready to be explored! ❤️‍🔥

A Metamorphosis, Lin Htet Aung, Myanmar, 2025
A Night That Took Everything, Nida Mehboob, Pakistan/Finland, 2025
Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya, Malena Szlam, Canada, 2024
Being John Smith, John Smith, United Kingdom, 2024
Coeur Bleu (Blue Heart), Samuel Suffren, Haiti/France, 2025
Casi Septiembre (Close to September), Lucía G. Romero, Spain, 2025
Ne réveillez pas l'enfant qui dort (Don't Wake the Sleeping Child), Kevin Aubert, Senegal/France/Morocco, 2025
Durian, Durian, Nelson Yeo, Singapore, 2024
Echoes of Machtat, Maram Nairi, Tunisia, 2024
Vybukhy bilia muzeiu (Explosions Near the Museum), Roman Khimei & Yarema Malashchuk, Ukraine, 2023
Deus-E-Meio (God-And-A-Half), Margarida Assis, Portugal, 2024
Happy New Year, Huang Weipeng, People’s Republic of China, 2024
HIC SVNT DRACONES, Justin Fayard, France, 2024
Hold Me Close, Aurora Brachman & LaTajh Weaver, USA, 2024
Comment ça va? (How Are You?), Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel, France, 2025
How Many Lovers Can You Fit Inside a House?, Maya Sfakianaki, Spain, 2024
Mother's Child, Naomi Noir, Netherlands, 2024
Mua besoj më shpëtoj portreti (I Believe the Portrait Saved Me), Alban Muja, Kosovo/Netherlands, 2025
Landscapes of Longing, Alisha Tejpal, Mireya Martinez & Anoushka Mirchandani, India/USA, 2024
Language Decay, Zazie Ray-Trapido, USA, 2025
looking she said I forget, Naomi Pacifique, Netherlands/Switzerland, 2024
Man number 4, Miranda Pennell, United Kingdom, 2024
Miraculous Accident, Assaf Gruber, Austria/Germany/Poland, 2025
O Jardim Em Movimento (The Moving Garden), Inês Lima, Portugal, 2024
Notes From Planet Three, Simon Ellis, United Kingdom, 2025
Okay Keskidee! Let Me See Inside, Rhea Storr, United Kingdom, 2025
Al Basateen (The Orchards), Antoine Chapon, France, 2025
Puro Andar (Language of the Entrails), Luciana Decker Orozco, Bolivia, 2025
Prelude, Alina Panasenko, Ukraine, 2024
Rain Falls Still, Đăng Tùng Bạch, Australia/Vietnam, 2024
SILENCE OF HOMA, Azin Feizabadi, Iran/Germany, 2025
Boi Thaka (The Flow of Resilience), Pranami Koch, India, 2024
The Garden Of Electric Delights, Billy Roisz, Austria, 2025
The Tobacconist, Keifer Nyron Taylor, United Kingdom, 2024
Water Sports, Whammy Alcazaren, Philippines, 2024
What goes up, Samar Al Summary, Saudi Arabia, 2024

Film selection by Anna Feistel, Alejo Franzetti, Theresa George, Ghasideh Golmanaki, Maike Mia Höhne, Sebastian Markt, Moritz Maul, Nora Molitor, Felix Piatkowski, Yulia Serdyukova & Sarnt Utamachote.

Filmstill: Casi Septiembre, Lucía G. Romero

Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg is Germany's film festival with the fairest working conditions! During the Berlinale, the team was honored with the Fair Festival Award. The prize was awarded for the third time by the AG Festivalarbeit in ver.di at the short film reception of the AG Kurzfilm.

The award is based on an anonymous survey conducted by ver.di among all permanent and freelance employees of German film festivals. In a two-stage process, the fairness of working conditions was surveyed in categories such as working atmosphere, equality, payment and participation. For the year 2024, Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg received the highest rating from the team and is therefore considered the fairest film festival in Germany.