Oberhausen 2020: on manifesting
The Oberhausen International Short Film Festival has cemented, across its history, its status as one of the most important such venues in the world, a position won largely by its ever-present connection to the newest and strongest developments in cinema, while also offering an encompassing view on the short film format itself, with a predilection towards avant-garde and experimental cinema. Founded in 1954 (being, thus, the oldest such festival in the world), the first years of Oberhausen were famous for its internationalist approach to cinema, being the only West-German festival to screen films from the DRG, while also showcasing some of the first works of filmmakers that went on to become legends in their own rights (amongst them, Francois Truffaut, Chantal Akerman, Alain Resnais, Vera Chytilova and Norman McLaren). What is arguably the most famous moment in the history of the festival is the one during its 1962 edition, when a group of 26 young German filmmakers (led by Haro Senft and Alexander Kluge) launched the Oberhausen Manifesto which some hold to be the foundational document of the New German Cinema. The text’s aims were situated in the same direction as those proposed by Cahiers du Cinema and the French New Wave: declaring the death of „conventional cinema”, they called for the creation and consolidation of a new cinematic stylistic which was exemplified by the work of young filmmakers that were spearheading a successful movement in the international festival circuit; a cinema that would be independent, „freed from the dictatorship of shareholders” and „all the usual conventions of the industry”.
Film critic & journalist. Collaborates with local and international outlets, programs a short film festival - BIEFF, does occasional moderating gigs and is working on a PhD thesis about home movies. At Films in Frame, she writes the monthly editorial - The State of Cinema and is the magazine's main festival reporter.
