The stu­dents’ plat­form - edi­to­r­i­al 2021 

This year we’ve received over 400 sub­mis­sions from across the globe. It has been impres­sive to see the diver­si­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty of young film­mak­ers and made a selec­tion of final films every­thing else then easy. A dif­fi­cult ques­tion : Which sto­ries do we want to tell?

The sto­ries our films tell are not always spec­tac­u­lar at the first sight.  Some­times all they do is taking us to  turn­ing points, these moments in the every­day life of a person where our life twists and that usu­al­ly comes along with ques­tion­ing who we are or how we want to be seen. Just as in our open­ing film  SHEDDING SKIN IN LATE JUNE, a film that takes place over pack­ing suit­cas­es some days right before Alia is return­ing to Libanon for her father‘s wed­ding. It is in  these moments, where some­times just ”being there with a camera“ , close­ly observ­ing casu­al­ly unfolds in a story that is unique yet relatable.

Rather than rely­ing on fancy gear or fund­ing, the sto­ries we have chosen often rely on a film­mak­er’s strong com­mit­ment to a cur­rent topic and a close rela­tion­ship with their pro­tag­o­nists. Like in TERRA INCOGNITA, a long-term visual research project of  anthro­pol­o­gist Shirley van der Maarel that takes us to a desert­ed Ital­ian vil­lage that is meant to become a home for asylum seek­ers - But how to make a home in a place others choose to leave? Or in DEUTSCHLAND IST EIN TRAMPOLIN, where we follow Demian and Romeo, two young asylum seek­ers on nav­i­gat­ing them­selves through the hardly under­stand­able logic of Germany’s asylum policy.

There is no one way to tell a story, but rather it is each story that demands a dif­fer­ent way of being told. Unusu­al sit­u­a­tions often result in unusu­al ways of sto­ry­telling. Such as in DON’T COME HOME THIS YEAR a film that unfolds its nar­ra­tive entire­ly through a col­lage of short viral video mes­sages of Roman­ian migrants stuck in the Aus­tri­an-hun­gar­i­an Border during Covid-19.

And some­times the sto­ries our films tell are hardly sto­ries at all. No end, middle or begin­ning, but rather films that take us to how it feels like to ”be there” at a cer­tain moment and time and feel­ing the time pass­ing in the rhythm of it’s sur­round­ings. With TALAMANCA, SWEET SALTY WIND and TENACE we are show­ing three unusu­al sen­so­ry films that make us immerse our­selves in a spe­cif­ic envi­ron­ment and let us observe close­ly and listen instead of telling: How does it feel to be there?

You can watch all of our select­ed films stretched over the 10 Days fes­ti­val period (May 6 - 16)

We’re look­ing for­ward to meet­ing you!

The selec­tion com­mit­tee of the stu­dents’ plat­form: Carsten Stark, Nora Duchêne, Savyasachi Anju Prabir, Thomas John, Nika Senica, Artem Funk, Sofia Saeed