SHORT OF WHAT?
KHM Kurzfilmtag

One of the most perfect films that I have ever seen runs a total of three minutes. Shot in 1966, Bruce Baillie’s 'All My Life' opens on a pan of an old picket fence framed by the blue sky above and a stretch of summer-brown grass below. – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Katarina Zdjelar | My Lifetime (Malaika) | 6 Min. | 2012
„My Lifetime (Malaika)“ ist weder ein Porträt der Musiker noch ist es eine Dokumentation über das Nationale Symphonieorchester Ghanas. Eher setzt Zdjelar mit großer Sensibilität das Orchester ein, um aufzuzeigen, wie der Mechanismus eines nationalstaatlichen Projektes Individuen affiziert und betrifft. – Inke Arns M.

Leinkauf, L. Henke, M. Wermke | Symbolic Threats | 15 Min. | 2015

In der Nacht zum 22. Juli 2014 hissen Matthias Wermke und Mischa Leinkauf auf der Brooklyn Bridge in New York City zwei weiße amerikanische Flaggen. Am Beispiel der hitzigen Debatte über die Flaggen fragt der Film, welchen gesellschaftlichen Handlungsspielraum Kunst heute hat. – Maike Mia Höhne

Susann Maria Hempel | Sieben Mal am Tag beklagen wir unser Los und nachts stehen wir auf, um nicht zu träumen | 18 Min. | 2014

„Sieben mal am Tag“ ist ein lyrisch-poetisches Requiem für menschliches Leid. Der Film kreiert in bisher selten gesehenen Metaphern ein suggestives, abgründiges Gefühl von psychischer Versehrtheit. – Juryerklärung film+

Ulu Braun | Birds | 15 Min. | 2014
A mesmerizing Hitchcockian visual study in ornithology, 'Birds' by Ulu Braun breaks down societal construction, hinting at a dormant danger: he observes earth’s winged inhabitants from up close, looking at their ominous and omniscient presence that watches over us in quiet surveillance. – Andrei T n sescu

Laure Prouvost | If It Was | 9 Min. | 2015
A dreamy, French-accented off-screen commentary fantasizes about the possibility of turning the museum, modern cathedral of culture, into a fun- house. The piece does not only suggest an escape from the museum as institution but, more concretely, from Munich’s Haus der Kunst’s history, created in 1937 as a showcase for Nazi art. – Juan A. Suárez

Cyprien Gaillard | Nightlife | 3D | 15 Min. | 2015
'Nightlife' is a multi-layered assemblage, illustrating mastery of the mis-en- scène, rich in both beauty and meaning. Indeed, the artist builds a complex narrative of symbolic and historic significance, while we are, on the surface, watching plants being subjected to a violent wind. – Gauthier Lesturgie

Miranda Pennell | Human Radio | 8 Min. | 2002
People dance in private moments of personal abandon, across London in the summer of 2001. – Miranda Pennell

John Smith | The Girl Chewing Gum | 12 Min. | 1976
In 'The Girl Chewing Gum' an authoritative voice-over pre-empts the events occurring in the image, seeming to order not only the people, cars and moving objects within the screen but also the actual camera movements operated on the street in view. – Michael Mazière

John Smith | The Black Tower | 24 Min. | 1985-87
'The Black Tower' expands the core of Smith‘s interests: chiefly, the image as a filmic fact which is constantly questioned and often undermined by language and soundtrack. – A. L. Rees

Miranda Pennell | You Made Me Love You | 4 Min. | 2005
What these three-and-a-half minutes allow us to see is a wealth of strangely touching portraits: twenty-one people ‘making love to the camera. – Dirk Schaefer

John Smith | Throwing Stones | 11 Min. | 2004
Bed, mirror, desk, the picture on the wall – that‘s all Smith needs to reflect in a both personal and analytic way on the world post 9/11. – Dana Linssen

Miranda Pennell | Why Colonel Bunny Was Killed | 28 Min. | 2010

Triggered by the memoirs of a medical missionary on the Afghan borderlands, the film is constructed from still photographs of colonial life on the North West frontier of British India at the turn of the 20th century. – Miranda Pennell

John Smith | Dad’s Stick | 5 Min. | 2012

'Dad’s Stick' features three well-used objects that my father showed me shortly before he died. – John Smith