From November 1st to 6th, interfilm Berlin is hosting its 21st international short-film festival.

Over 3 600 films and videos from 93 countries were sent to Berlin. 500 productions from a variety of genres - drama, animation, documentary, children’s films and music clips- will be chosen for competition and special programs. In this way, ‘interfilm’ Berlin presents a good overview of the latest developments in international short-films. Again this year, over 16 000 guests are awaited by Berlins second-largest film festival. The juries of the various competitions will award a total of 35 000€ in cash and prizes.

Along with the international and the German competitions, a special emphasis is being given to short-film productions from Poland and Sweden. Additional competitions are: ‘Shorts for Kids’, ‘Immaginale’, and ‘Eject’ the long night of unusual films.

International Competition
About 100 films compete for the interfilm Short Awards in the categories: best film, best animation, best camera, best documentary, and best film against violence and intolerance. The prizes are awarded by an international jury.

German Competition
For the third time, the German competition offers homegrown productions their own forum. From amongst the mostly independently produced entries, the jury will chose the winner of the ‘interfilm Short Awards’ in the category German short-film.

KuKi – children’s and youths’ short-film festival
In the competition KuKi (shorts for kids), a jury of kids will award the prize for best children’s film. In addition, the kids program also focuses on Poland and Sweden; an assortment of films from the Youth Media Festival 2004 will be screened; Berndt Güntzel-Lingner from the federal film board will speak with kids about film content and techniques.
Over the holidays, a workshop was held in which kids shot their own films which will also be shown at the festival.

Country focus: Poland, Sweden and Spain
In this year of German-Polish friendship, interfilm Berlin presents an extensive program with films from Poland. Alongside three programs with current short-films, the public will be treated to a retrospective on polish animation films. The internationally respected directors Piotr Dumal and Zbigniew Rybczynski will be presented.
Short-film productions from Sweden will be shown in three double –mixed programs.
In two special programs, current shorts from Spain will be shown.

Immaginale
The Immaginale presents short-films from Italy and forms ist own competition. In the last four years the Immaginale has established itself as a permanent part of the interfilm Berlin short-film festival. The prize is supplied by the Associazione Culturale Lavori in Corso e.V.


Special Programs

ICONS
A special program is dedicated to the British filmmakers Phil Mulloy and Vera Neubauer. Amongst others, seven new episodes of Phil Mulloy’s ‘The Christies’ will be premiered.
A retrospective dedicated to the heroes of Italian animation will include films from Roberto Catani and Bruno Bozzetto, whose most famous creation is Signor Rossi.

LOCAL HEROES
An Otto Sander Special shows short films from the years 1964-2005 in which this actor from Berlin has participated.

CREAM OF THE CROP
The Waltzing St. Kilda program shows a variety of Australian short films from the St. Kilda Short-Film Festival in Melbourne which give an insight to the issues with which filmmakers down under are dealing.
A selection of French animated films from the latest Rencontres Audiovisuelles de Lille will be shown in a special program.
Short films from all over Europe that have been given an Oscar will be shown in the Oscars for Europe program.
The highlights of the international short-film festival in the Berlin underground will be shown in The Best of Going Underground; with live music.
In Short Matters 05, two programs present the nominees for the European short film prize.

DIGITAL TRACKS
Collages with music, pictures and animation will be shown in the special program Clipped Music and Animation
The programs a-side and b-side show a selection of legendary music videos from directors Anton Corbin, Mark Romanek, Stephan Sednaoui, and Jonathan Glazer, who has released the Directors Label in four compilations.

interfilm+
Documentary films that are on the borderline of this genre, are presented in Reality Bites. Cliches, bizarre characters, and events represented in a documentary style, bring up the question of what a documentary film actually is.
Construction Sights looks at architecture in film.
Animation trends from Asia are the focus of AsiAnima.
In addition, an in-house experimental film program is planned to be shown in the Play_Gallery

Forum
The film program will be accompanied by podium discussions and lectures with international guests.
Representatives from film and media from Poland, Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, and Italy report on the current state of short film production in their countries. These discussions will be held in the Instituto Cervantes.
A further event will deal with perspectives in German-Polish cultural exchange.

After the success of the Siemens mobile MicroMovie Award 2004, interfilm Berlin and Siemens will join in the presentation of a new format this year. The festival magazine Blue News was exclusively designed for the coming festival. Festival guests can load the magazine for free, onto their mobile phone, over a Bluetooth sender.

Along with micromovies from past competitions, portraits and background information, there will be a daily micromovie session in which clips taken by filmmakers during the festival will be shown.
www.micromovie-award.com