Es ist halt ein riskanter Seiltanz

Direction: Antonia Jungwirth & Fiona Schiffer

Text: Fiona Schiffer

Germany 2024, 7:01 min

Within ES IST HALT EIN RISKANTER SEILTANZ, boundaries between the individual and the environment, language and moving images blur. The protagonist ME serves as the central link between reality and abstract points of escape. ME is a prototype of the seeker, struggling to find their place in a world of emptiness and sensory overload. Playfulness and naivety become guiding principles, green spaces disguise themselves as nature, and a hint of loneliness always resonates in the pink plush outfit.

Lila Katze

Direction: Josua Graf

Text: Micha Kunze

Germany 2024, 4:46 min

A poet finds himself within the four walls he has built for himself. A typewriter, candlelight, a couch – at first glance, it seems like the perfect retreat. A space of solitude, maybe even inspiration. But he is not alone. Time and again, a peculiar visitor makes her presence known: a purple cat. Not a creature of flesh and fur, but a presence. She never shows herself fully, yet she’s everywhere. A shimmer of violet light here, a sudden shift in color there. Slowly, the room begins to change. The yellow glow fades. Purple seeps in – drop by drop, frame by frame. The cat is not real, and yet she is. She is the shape of something unspoken. The weight in the chest. The shadow in the corner. Purple Cat is a quiet, poetic portrayal of depression – a haunting metaphor for the creeping nature of inner darkness.

in fact

Direction: Gabriele Nugara

Text: Paula Jänig

Germany 2024, 3:34 min

The words of the young poet Paula Jänig guide us through an urban setting that evokes abandonment and desolation, while a boy embodying the title ‘eigentlich’ is struggling with the search for a piece of land where he can transplant a clump of vegetation.

A reconnaissance of the existential condition of expatriates, a confrontation with an external reality that is disturbing but still capable of welcoming natural life. An ode to rebirth.

burak

Direction: Sami Morhayim

Text: Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç

Germany 2024, 4:18 min

In his poem “burak,” Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç conjures a mysterious atmosphere where queer desire, sacred imagery, and the dissolution of boundaries between nature and urban spaces converge.The film captures the protagonists’ search in a mysterious atmosphere, filled with curiosity and longing, inviting reflections on the intersections of the sacred, the sensual, and the surreal.

13 Gedichte von Robot Gernhardt

Direction: Markus Kempken

Text: Kathrin Passig

Germany 2025, 4:57 min

Kathrin Passig creates poems following a verse by Robert Gernhardt, with some help by ChatGPT which plunders the texts of the world. The animation recycles wood engravings from 1900. Very sustainable!

Between us

Direction & Text: Arzije Asani

Switzerland 2025, 4:40 min

In poetic words, a mother reflects on her relationship with her daughter, who breaks away from tradition and searches for freedom, self-love and meaning. She questions marriage, faith and rituals, but always returns to her mother when in doubt. Despite conflicts and contradictions, the mother remains a calm anchor in the daughter’s stormy search.

Gedicht ohne uns (Poem without us)

Direction: Jenny Dam

Text: Clemens Schittko

Germany 2025, 8:09 min

The animated film »Gedicht ohne uns«, based on the poem of the same name by Clemens Schittko, is a meditation on the relationship between nature and culture; on naming, systematising and mapping landscape; a gentle look at a world devoid mankind and a linguistic-magical evocation of the river Spree with its tributaries and side arms. The film images are hand-painted with egg tempera.

What is going on here

Text: Guenther Kaip

Production: Wolfgang Herbst

Austria 2025, 3:48 min

The main idea was to arrange Guenther Kaip’s abstract lyrics in a very musical way. Tobias Artner spoke the lyrics in different moods and tempos and I created an arrangement in different sound layers and volumes, which results in a simple kind of score and a certain rhythm for the graphic animations.

Outside the Window

Animation: Isabella Marquart

Germany 2024, 3:03 min

“Vor dem Fenster” (“Outside The Window”) is a short film by animator Isabella Marquart from 2024. It is made with analogue drawn animation and cut-out animation techniques. Its narrative revolves around squares painted on the walls outside a therapist’s window, which the protagonist looks at, struggling for words. Through delicate pencil drawings morphing into each other and eclectic collaged images, the film narrates the thoughts and feelings of a character who is only starting to understand behavioural patterns and fears through therapy.

Glasout

Direction: Mert Akbal

Text: Andreas H. Drescher

Germany 2025, 1:56 min

The film Glasaus is a deconstruction of romantic ideals. The repetitions that are made audible go against the void, touch on the attempt at togetherness and end in nothingness again. Longings from one physicality, from one spirituality to another, take on structure, even find their way into dialogue, but then fade away again. But rhythmically articulating shared desires is not enough to avoid alienation. Visually, the glass, the dividing line between individual and individual, ultimately retains the upper hand. From the outset, the human, like an eye, is merely blown glass and the scene expands not physically but into the architectural, the figurative is attempted, but remains in its materiality.

klangfarbe des zufalls

Animation & Text: Jörg Piringer

Austria 2025, 3:25 min

3 minutes 25 seconds
a film about the timbres of chance. noise. in all forms.

time is possibly
just an illusion
of our limited perception
the result of entangled systems