Dream a Little Dream of Me
The fifteenth edition of the Regensburg Short Film Week will be held from November 19 to 26 at Leerer Beutel, Wintergarten, Andreasstadel and Ostentor. In addition to the usual German and international competition program consisting of 2600 entries, this year Swiss shorts will also be featured.
Back in the 1970s Swiss films were often shown in German movie theaters, and films like Alain Tanner’s Jonas Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 and Claude Goretta’s The Lacemaker (starring Isabelle Huppert) were even box office hits. Since that time, however, Switzerland has come to be associated more with Emil, Max Frisch and secret funds stashed away in Swiss banks. And so it’s high time to take a fresh look at contemporary Swiss cinema. As always, these contemporary Swiss films will be accompanied by a program of older films, which will mainly feature films from the year 1968. Also included is the short film that can be said to mark the birth of new Swiss cinema: Nice Time, which was shot at London’s Piccadilly Circus in 1957 by Claude Goretta and Alain Tanner for the British Film Institute. One of the most beautiful shorts of the 1950s, Nice Time wasn’t shown for the first time until 1966. This fits well into a program that shows the “dark side” of the Swiss soul. The work of two Swiss directors, Georges Schwizgebel and Clemens Klopfenstein (both born in 1944), will also be showcased at the festival. Schwizgebel is one of Switzerland’s most prominent animation artists, and Klopfenstein is something like the grand old man of Swiss art film.
As is customary at the Regensburg Short Film Week, two filmmakers will have the opportunity to share some of their favorite films with festival audiences. Under the title Cinema mi vida the Stuttgart based painter and animation film maker Jochen Kuhn will show some of his films, and film critic Wilhelm Roth will screen Wim Wenders or Vlado Kristl classics under the rubric Cinema mi amor.
The superb program of dream films at this year’s festival consisting mainly of older works will be divided into seven sections, all of which will give audiences the opportunity to delve into the world of dreams: Traumzeit (Dream Time); Traumleben (Dream Life); Traumlust (Dream Desire); Traumangst (Dream Terror); Traumwelt (Dream World); Traumfabrik (Dream Factory) and, for children, Traumstunde (Dream Hour).
The films in these seven programs will range from the works of Buster Keaton to Norman McLaren and Maya Deren all the way to Matthias Müller and the Quay Brothers. In keeping with its theme, this year’s festival will also feature Nightmares on Wax from popular record companies, as well as daydreams in the new series called Poetry in Motion. DJs and writers like Hans Nieswandt, who will be looking at some of his old movie reviews, will also be turning their attention to movie dreams.
And then of course there’s the many entertainment events including nights at Regensburg’s Kinokneipe club and the Zündfunk party, which will be returning to the Leeren Beutel after last year’s exile.
For further information visit: www.kurzfilmwoche.de
10.11.08 - online redaktion