Which tales do cities tell? What is hidden between the lines, and which analogies can
the attentive observer uncover? As a program, STADTGEFLÜSTER introduces two kinds of urban
actors, the ones who’s radiant is limited to the point where their dreams seem illusionary, and
the ones who yet have to explore and conquer the urban jungle that is at their feet. In that
sense, the cinema itself becomes part of the urban experience.
Some city in Italy: Local girls and German tourists share the joy of translating: “Come si dice?” – “Ich liebe dich.” Suddenly, a hard cut throws us into a verbal altercation, we witness authentic bursts of emotion between two local parents. The camera is sent into turmoil. The filmmaker exhausts the hand-camera as she condenses harsh pan and zoom movements into a seemingly frantic – and sometimes pixilated – frame. A film experiment driven by the fascination for, and the attraction to the foreign.… >>>
Initially, we are director Tal Amiran’s tourist friend as he takes us to the gloomy lights all around Eifel Tower. There, we meet his protagonists, young Senegalese men selling souvenirs. The atmosphere is tense as police brutality unfolds at random. They struggle not only for themselves to survive, but for their families back home. We follow the young men to their illegal housing, and so the camera takes us to a 26 square meter flat shared by seven men forced to work the city in different shifts of the day. DAFA METTI gives a voice to those muted and forgotten by the civil society.… >>>
Premiere:
German Premiere
Artist Daniel Burkhardt takes us back to the basics as he creates a filmic tour de force through the alphabet. Quick cuts, keywords from A to Z, and repeating pictures of city life melt into a unique perceptual offering. Through changing keywords, Burkhardt masterfully draws our attention to previously unseen details in the frames. And so, he allows for us to make sense of the presented combinations between keywords and cityscapes by ourselves.… >>>
Nominated:
A38-Production Grant Kassel-Halle
- Director: Daniel Burkhardt
What can we learn from a person’s shoes? Can you recognize a couple, or whether someone is single – as one of the protagonists claims – by their shoes? Director Hannah Jandl interviewed people in the streets of Munich but turned things upside down as OBEN OFFEN’s camera strictly remains below the knee. And so, when her interviewees speak about their day to days, their mantras, and, after all, their shoes, our conceptual focus has to widen. Having to prioritize content over intuition, our imagination quickly takes over as we fantasize beyond the perceivable.… >>>
One morning, Ruby awakens to her dog Frankie missing. Symbolic for the things to come, this summer day will be special for the young protagonist who constantly has to navigate between two worlds: Her parent’s home of England, which they left a long time ago, and Portugal, where she has been raised in an English community. Even after all this time, Ruby cannot help but to feel foreign in her home abroad, and to make things worse, her best friend Millie returns to England. RUBY is a symbolically charged programmatic counterproposal amidst the depths of nature.… >>>
Nominated:
A38-Production Grant Kassel-Halle
