The Oberhausen Short Film Festival Tour
Malody (Barker, 2012)
The Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen comes to Los Angeles. Oberhausen, Germany hosts what is probably the world’s leading festival for short films, and Filmforum is bring two of their programs from 2012 to Los Angeles. Filmforum remains committed to bringing the best art films from around the world to Los Angeles. We hope that you will join us as we look at some of the leading contemporary work. To the best of our knowledge, these are all Los Angeles, and West Coast premieres, and some might be US premieres!
In this program of selections from Oberhausen’s International Competition, six documentary and experimental video works (for the most part) take a close look at human and animal behavior. In Finland, the elk and the elk whisperer stalk each other until the final showdown, while Elodie Pong playfully riffs on the term “Ersatz” in a dialogue between two people. In “Snow Tapes”, winner of the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen, stones are cast at young Palestinians. What is fiction here, and what is documentary? The diversity of current international short film production is just waiting to be discovered in this program. www.kurzfilmtage.de
This program is supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Additional support generously provided by American Cinematheque. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.
No estoy muerto, solo estoy dormido (I'm not dead, only asleep)
Directed by Juan S. Lopez Maas (2011, Netherlands, color, 25 min.)
According to a Peruvian wisdom the soul of a deceased person returns in the form of a donkey. The portrait of two Peruvian families who have a special bond with a donkey.
Snow Tapes
Directed by Mich'ael Zupraner (2011, Palestinian Territories, color, 14 min.)
Watching home movies with the Al-Haddad family, Hebron, West Bank: Snow, settlers, and souvenirs. Images of stonings and beatings blend in with humorous digressions, cinematographic critiques, and the obligatory tea ritual of Arab hospitality.
Ersatz
Directyed by Elodie Pong (2011, Switzerland, France, color, 4 min.)
In an exchange about the meaning of the word “Ersatz”, the two protagonists engage in an absurd and poetical discussion. Their pictorial dialogue about the idea of replaceability turns into a humorous and philosophical meditation.
Malody
Directed by Phillip Barker (2012, Canada, color, 12 min.)
Los Angeles Premiere! Malody is terminally ill. She sits with her father in a restaurant inside a big wooden wheel. A little girl enters and turns the restaurant upside down. Malody dies and is taken to a river by her dad. She is brought back to life by the little girl.
Hirvikuiskaaja (The Elk Whisperer)
Directed by Ilkka Rautio (2011, Finland, color, 19 min.)
A short documentary about an encounter between elk whisperer and elk at the beginning of the hunting season.
Café Regular, Cairo
Directed by Ritesh Batra (2011, Egypt, India, color, 11 min.)
Los Angeles premiere! A young couple finds itself speaking about things they have never spoken about before, as they try to find their own place in a changing world.