Your
guide in English to films showing in Germany.
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The positive energy swirling around the “Playground” was infectious as Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg (KFF), KurzFilmAgentur (KFA) and Mo&Friese Junges Kurzfilm Festival celebrated its first in-person opening ceremony since 2019 and the worldwide pandemic wake-up call. The 38th Kurzfilm Festival’s attendees were gaga with the Open House concept; the innovative and creative planning, embracing fun and spicily delicious funky festival was doubly celebratory – it was KFA’s thirtieth birthday. Whoopee!
Two thematic requisites were determined early in the festival’s planning: the future as an echo, and ecstasy as a fundamental attitude. The exhibition theme for its Open Space section was “Home – and its Hidden Corners,” i.e., the 21st century’s meaning of home. Lab Laba Laba, the Indonesian collective and Malaysian filmmaker/chef Bernard Chauly were invited to transform the cavernous (post) warehouse into a home. Did they ever! Guests were giddy flowing through the designated/decorated spaces, albeit sans walls, discovering delightful artistic elements in cozily separated “rooms.” At the far end was a stage and huge screen proudly displaying the Kurzfilm logo and the roomy exhibition space beyond. (KFF’s team used manual scooters during the festival to get around.) Olfactory receptors were greeted with the Open House cuisine’s delectable smells tickling our taste buds.
Kicking-off the presentations was the buoyantly lively Culture Senator Dr. Carsten Brosda speaking in English, and mindful that Hamburg’s COVID-19 rules finally allowed togetherness. He referenced 2022’s festival catchphrase, "Echoes from the Near Future," broadening its scope to Ukraine’s dire position, and the possibilities of change. “If we can think the creativity then we have the possibility to change theirs (future)…” Dr. Brosda recognized KFFs eminence saying people in Germany’s government know if you want to talk about short films, you have to go to Hamburg.
Alexandra Gramatke, Managing Director of KFA stressed the experimental film genre’s importance, and short films’ significance in the commercial marketplace, while Mo&Friese’s Lina Paulsen, director/curator, talked about this year’s distinctiveness: a jury of grown-ups was added, and they’re happily sharing the “adults” space at Post Playground. (Mo&Friese’s “playroom” had a delightful video playing with the costumes on display.)
Co-directors Maike Mai Höhne and Sven Schwarz described the euphoria that accompanies hosting an Open House, and "hidden corners" metaphorical meaning. The language of films is important and KFF's impetus is to show different films from what’s expected. The short film format offers more opportunities to try different things.
The two homes inside Bernard Chauly’s heart are cooking and filmmaking, compliments of his grandmother’s influence. Based in London, during the presentations Chauly explained Malaysia’s unique “open house” concept. During some religious/cultural festivals well-wishers—friends, families, strangers—visit homes, including the King’s palace, to partake of waiting banquets; everyone’s treated the same. Bernard said, “Tonight feels like I’m inviting you to my home.”
Lab Laba Laba, founded by filmmaker Edwin in 2014 with friends Lisbon Rahman and Rizki Lazuardi, means “spider” in Indonesian. Perhaps a spin-off from the webs of the abandoned national films’ archive of discarded propaganda films Edwin’s found creatively useful. Invited to curate KFFs exhibition, Laba Laba showcased six artists from the collective and wider Southeast Asia. Their dissimilar styles demonstrated and exposed the fluidity of Asian’s migrational reality, and how that impacts the “Home” theme. Director Phạm Ngọc Lân’s KFF trailer's based on a Vietnamese fairytale: “Similar to the story, cinema releases and incites our imagination through the images that it paints. Perhaps, we – the audience, have always been the children, somehow innocent and thirsting for stories?” This 2022 festival was truly a moving feast, and a joyful experience for all attending.