Utlänningar. Del 1. Båtar och kanoner (Foreigners. Part 1. Ships and Cannons)

by Peter Nestler (Sweden 1977)
German with English subtitles

"Nestler's films have a theme like a person has a head. It's about foreigners and it's about ships and cannons. Foreigners and ships have something to do with each other in trade, foreigners and cannons in war. Between trade and war the transitions are fluid, one can be the continuation of the other. The point where they meet is in the arms trade, where war needs trade and trade needs war." (Manfred Blank, Filmkritik No. 256, April 1978) Ships and Cannons was one of many films by Peter Nestler that were rejected by the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen over the years. A text in re-selected Dossier No. 2 is devoted to the connections between the festival and Peter Nestler.

Von Griechenland (From Greece)

by Peter Nestler (Germany 1966)
German with English subtitles

In the summer of 1965, Peter Nestler and Reinald Schnell traveled to Greece to document the resistance of the population against the imminent military coup. Their film places current events in the context of resistance against the German occupation during World War II and the fascist forces that remained powerful in Greece after the war. From Greece was shown "out of competition" at the 1966 Oberhausen Short Film Festival. The ensuing polemical controversy surrounding the film made Nestler persona non grata with German broadcasters, leading to his emigration to Sweden in 1967. A text in re-selected Dossier No. 2 is devoted to the connections that have nevertheless continued to exist between the Short Film Festival and Peter Nestler.

...a sekat dobrotu... (…And Toe the Line…)
by Peter Solan (CSSR 1968)

A young woman (played by Milena Dvorska) in a white smock in a barren cell. In her inner monologue she asks herself the same questions which plague the beholder: Where is she, how did she get there, and why? The openly political connotations of Solan´s film testify to the courage which the „New Wave“ filmmakers had taken in the course of the Prague Spring. When …And Toe the Line… won a main Jury Award in Oberhausen in 1969, the political climate had already changed, and the uneasy sense of foreboding which pervades the film was beginning to appear justified. 

...And Toe the Line...  is part of re-selected Dossier: #1 Fortress - Slovak Films in Oberhausen before 1991

Courtesy of RTVS - Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska

The video is no longer available.

Som prekliaty fotograf (I am a cursed photographer)
by Julius Matula (CSSR 1969)

A portrait of photographer Pavel Hudec Ahasver is also a homage to the young generation, their thirst for freedom, their non-conformism, their narcissism. Julius Matula´s original edit of the film made the political stakes clear by containing images of the recent invasion of the CSSR by Warsaw pact troops underlaid with a protest song by Karel Kryl. The Oberhausen selection comittee saw Som prekliaty fotograf in early 1969 and invited it to the festival. But even censoring cuts did not save the film from being suppressed and withheld from its contemporary audience.

Som prekliaty fotograf is part of  re-selected Dossier: #1 Fortress - Slovak Films in Oberhausen before 1991

Courtesy of Slovak Film Institute

Artist and curator Can Sungu (bi'bak, Berlin) talks to Özcan Arca about his film Üç Bölümlü Kısa Film (Short Film In Three Parts), which was awarded the prize of the Kinder- und Jugendfilmzentrum (Children’s and Youth Film Center) at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 1979, but then was soon forgotten. Arca recapitulates the oppressive political climate in Turkey before the 1980 military coup and describes how, for him, Zen Buddhism and surrealism became related forms of resistance. Increasingly alienated from the commercial Turkish film industry of the 1980s, Arca later turned to other things, working in his learned profession as an engineer and starting to grow wine with his daughter: the wines they press are meant to be elegant and honest - possibly a philosophy of life. 

One of the few Turkish films in the archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen is Özcan Arca's Üç Bölümlü Kısa Film (Short Film In Three Parts) from 1979, which is not only a rarity as an archive item, but also a highly original example of the political cinema of its time. In three stylistically very different parts, it deals with various forms of escapism in a society that has become blind to the violence that is eroding it from within. Made shortly before the 1980 military coup, Üç Bölümlü Kısa Film was bound to appear to contemporary audiences as a courageous plea for civil disobedience. In a recently recorded conversation with Can Sungu, Özcan Arca talks about what motivated him to make the film at the time, how it came to Oberhausen, and also about his other interests: Zen Buddhism, surrealism and winemaking.

When his film Bareha Dar Barf Bedonya Miayand (The Lambs Are Born in the Snow) was awarded the "Environmental Prize" at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 1990, Farhad Mehranfar was not present in Oberhausen. In this video statement, which he recorded for the Kurzfilmtage Channel, he describes the background of the film: how, in the wake of the Iranian "Cultural Revolution," he moved from Tehran, where he had studied film, to his hometown on the Caspian Sea and began to take an interest in the Talesh (Kadusian) people whose historic homeland the region is. The film is about their descendants, who live as pastoral nomads in north-western Iran. Mehranfar talks about filming in the difficult-to-access region and the influence this experience had on his further work as a filmmaker.

The Lambs Are Born in the Snow
Farhad Mehranfar
Iran, 1989
Original with English subtitles

At the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 1990, in addition to the usual prizes, the International Jury also awarded a one-time "Environmental Prize", which had been donated by a citizen of Oberhausen. The award went to Bareha Dar Barf Bedonya Miayand (The Lambs Are Born in the Snow, Iran, 1989), one of the first films by Farhad Mehranfar, who is now a well-known feature and documentary film director. Shot in winter in a difficult-to-reach mountainous region in north-western Iran, the film depicts the lives of nomadic shepherds who are believed to be descendants of the ancient Kadusian people. Mehranfar focuses a family’s daily life, determined by the care of the animals. In a video statement recorded for the Kurzfilmtage Channel, Mehranfar describes the making of the film and why he decided not to remain a mere observer, but to tell a story together with his protagonists. Bareha Dar Barf Bedonya Miayand was re-screened at the 68th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in a programme dedicated to Peter Nestler, who had championed the film as a member of the jury in 1990. The 16mm award-winner print that remained in the Oberhausen archive was digitised for that occasion.

Under the auspices of South German Television (SDR) and their series „Poverty in Germany“, Gernot Eigler, in 1970, shot a film about misfits and dropouts, titled Asoziale. Eigler lived in Mannheim and had a full-time job as an occupational physician. Private relations and friendships in the context of the student-run „Filmstudio“ at the Technical University in Aachen, however, had inspired him to make films. While researching this lesser known site of independent film production in Aachen, Peter Hoffmann got in touch with Cyrus Kube, who from 1966 to 1972 was one of the driving forces behind the Filmstudio and also a collaborator on Asoziale. In the interview, Kube recalls a production setting marked by the student movement of the time as well as the German underground film scene.

While researching German underground films of the 1960s, Peter Hoffmann came across a 16mm print of the film Asoziale by Gernot Eigler. The film was produced in 1970 for a TV programme titled „Poverty in Germany“ and it won a special mention from the „Filmothek der Jugend“, a Youth film jury, in Oberhausen in 1971. Eigler introduces us to people who for different reasons are leading their lives at the margins of society and whom the welfare bureaucracy typically files under „asozial“ (unsocial, anti-social). Even though on the surface the film has a factual appearance, it clearly sides with the protagonists and their resistance against forced conformity. The film was made in the context of the student-run „Filmstudio“ of the Technical University in Aachen. Peter Hoffmann has interviewed Cyrus Kube, one of the driving forces behind the Filmstudio and also a collaborator on Asoziale.

TI-PRI (The Mud House, 1972) is probably the only film in the Oberhausen archive in the Breton language. When it screened in Oberhausen in 1973, resistance against the oppression of minority languages and cultures within centralized France was at its peak. Director Philippe Cassard, in conversation with Tobias Hering, talks about his motivation to support the Breton cause at the time and recalls the obstacles TI-PRI had to overcome on the way to Oberhausen.

TI-PRI (The Mud House, 1972) is a poetic homage to subsistance farming in Brittany and at the same time a militant warning against the loss of Breton culture and language. When the film screened in Oberhausen in 1973, resistance against the oppression of minority languages and cultures within centralized France was at its peak. TI-PRI was director Philippe Cassard's first film. In an interview he talks about his motivation to support the Breton cause and recalls the obstacles the film had to overcome on the way to Oberhausen.

Digitized in collaboration with Cinémathèque de Bretagne