Happy birthday, AG Kurzfilm! The German Short Film Association, who are turning 20, have been an important partner of the Goethe-Institut, especially through their Emerging Artists and Short Exports programs, which we have shown
online and exhibited in Toronto over the years. German Short Film Association AG Kurzfilm asked to send a greeting on their 20th anniversary. So
looking back at past collaborations and remembering shorts we have presented, I montaged the film titles into a "birthday poem," pondering the art form.
I have a CONFESSION:
SEVEN TIMES A DAY WE BEMOAN OUR LOT
AND AT NIGHT WE GET UP
TO AVOID OUR DREAMS
(MOON… BLINK)
Get at my ACHILLes' heel
Grab MY THROAT
Give me AIR
...or a FACELIFT...
(but always:)
Go beyond the SURFACE-GLAZE
OPEN the CURTAIN
—IN BETWEEN IDENTITIES—
STICK &
EXTEND our MEMORY
THE INK DOESN’T DRY, the screen doesn't go out.
I am THE PROBAND.
"Found Short Titles Montage” by Jutta Brendemuhl
Hommage to AG Kurzfilm and the dozens of artists and their short films you have shared with us in Toronto over two decades (and a little Instagram reenactment of one quote).
Thank you, Lisa Hering & team Dresden AG Kurzfilm; Eli Cortiñas “Confessions with an Open Curtain”; Lotte Meret Effinger “Surface Glaze”; Loretta Fahrenholz “My Throat, My Air”; Yara Haskiel “Memory Extended”; Susann Maria Hempel “Seven Times a Day We Bemoan our Lot and At Night We Get Up to Avoid Dreaming”; Felix Herrmann “The Ink Doesn’t Dry”; Rainer Kohlberger “Moon Blink”; Gudrun Krebitz “Achill”; Aleksandar Radan “In Between Identities”; Stefan Ramirez Pérez “Stick It”; Jan Riesenbeck, Dennis Stein-Schomburg “Facelift”; Hannes Schilling “The Proband”; and many more.
The German Short Film Association was founded on May 5, 2002 at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. Today, AG Kurzfilm brings together nearly 50 member institutions from the film and cinema industry, including film festivals, film and art schools, short film distribution and sales companies, all of which are connected to short film in a wide variety of ways and are committed to promoting it. The federal association, based in Dresden, sees itself not only as a comprehensive competence center for German short film, but also as a service centre for filmmakers, as well as a point of contact for the industry, cinemas and film festivals.
The eleven founding members of the umbrella organization were: dffb German Film and Television Academy Berlin, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, Filmfest Dresden, Filmfest Weiterstadt, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, interfilm Berlin, Short Film Agency Hamburg, Bamberg Short Film Festival, Regensburg Short Film Week, Short Cuts Cologne and Stuttgart Film Winter.
image: Lotte Meret Effinger “Surface Glaze” courtesy AG Kurzfilm
