31st International Short Film Festival Berlin: 10 – 15 November 2015
With more than 20,000 the 31st International Short Film Festival interfilm Berlin came to a euphoric close on Sunday night. During the festival, 500 films from 70 countries were shown in 6 competitions and 50 programmes.
Attendence was also up at KUKI – the 8th International Short Film Festival for Children and Youth Berlin, with a total audience of 6,000. The creative exchange for industry professionals, interforum registered an equally significant rise with 508 participants.
The Berlin-Brandenburg Short Film Award for Best Film was conferred to Russian filmmaker Gala Sukhanova for her film, INSPECTION – a film about a girl who lives under the threat of being sent to an orphanage.
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The award for Best Live Action Film was bestowed on Austrian director Chris Raiber for his film NELLY. The award for Best Animation was given to WHOLE, made by Danish filmmaker William Reynish. Winner of the German Competition was ERLEDIGUNG EINER SACHE by filmmaker Dustin Loose.
A complete list of all winners can be found here
600 accredited industry guests attended the festival this year, of which 250 were international and national filmmakers.
Prizes worth a total of € 40,000 were conferred in six categories. Innovations this year included two online competitions, in which films from both the Confrontations and Green Film competitions could be watched online. Two international juries comprising members from all over the globe conferred one award for each competition.
This year’s cinematic focus was placed on both Canada and the Baltic states. The Canadian films displayed a diverse array of themes and styles, representing and exploring the country’s indigenous, francophone and anglophone identities. And two films from Canada won prizes in two interfilm competitions: THE AUTEURS OF CHRISMAS from Fourground Films took home the eject Audience Award and the film VIADUC by Patrice Laliberté was conferred with the first prize by the youth jury in the TeenScreen section.
The 15th edition of the Confrontations Competition took place amidst the largest refugee crisis Europe has ever seen, reason enough to add a special program of enlightening shorts dedicated to the subject: “Point of No Return – Refugee Stories”. Comprising films from Ethiopia, France, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico and USA, the audience showed a particular interest in this cinematic discourse on contemporary political topics.
The interforum series of panel discussions, filmmaker talks and masterclasses drew 508 participants. With maximum attendance, a highly professional program and impressive performances, the highlight at interforum proved to be the screenwriting competition, Script Pitch, while the memorable film talk, “Canadian Short Film in the Limelight” was also insightful and successful.
The 8th KUKI + TeenScreen International Short Film Festival for Children and Youth Berlin has once again broke attendance records, with an audience of 6,000 this year. Screenings were held in Filmtheater am Friedrichshain, Passage, Babylon and Il Kino. Most school programs were booked out, resulting in 4,500 guests for those screenings alone.
Highlights at KUKI + TeenScreen included the competition program for children aged 6+, the sold-out TeenScreen competition programs for teens aged 12+ and 14+ as well as the documentary competition. As numerous programs were booked out in advance, repeat screenings were added to meet the demand where possible. Even the new 16+ screenings aimed at teenagers and adults were well attended. The greatest achievement however was the incredibly positive resonance from pupils, students, teachers, children, teens and parents! As one teenage girl said, “Thank you for showing us inspiring films and taking us seriously!”