International Competition: Animation Avantgarde
Animation Avantgarde is the new part of the international competition of VIS Vienna Independent Shorts which presents animation, experimental films, digital media and all manner of hybrid forms of these divisions of artistic audio-visual art. One of the selections central concerns is aimed at highlighting the most innovative works from the international production scene. A second, equally important concern is the right to plurality of form.
In this case the term "Avantgarde" doesn’t merely stand for a clearly defined movement, but more importantly it describes the need to detect and present the "new", that expands pre-existent strategies and well known experiences in the most diverse sectors and forms. It is no matter whether a film is representational or abstract, humorous or serious, playful or constructed, colourful or bleak, handmade or electronic – the important question is whether the film has something to contribute in any way to the expansion of our horizon of experience.
In cooperation with ASIFA Austria and the curator Thomas Renoldner, Animation Avantgarde came into being with the claim to introduce more significance to this department of international short film scene. This is the reason for the international jury to award the ASIFA Austria Award of 2.000 Euros. Additionally there will be an audience award worth 1.000 Euros. And the jury will nominate one film from the three competition programmes for the Elfi von Dassanowsky Prize.
Friday, May 28th, 2010, 10 p.m., Metro Kino
The first part of the programme of 13 films presents various artificially generated worlds. On the one end of the spectrum is a world that has been turned upside down, on the other a definitive synthetic universe, and in between we experience the smudged edges between abstract, synthetic and (apparently) real spaces. The second part of the programme looks at diverse, often graphically reduced symbolic languages, thereby offering incredibly varied contents: music film, linguistic study, romantic drama, persiflage of cinema, entertaining parody and much else besides.
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Saturday, May 29th, 2010, 8 p.m., Metro Kino
This programme of 14 films examines the human body as its theme and presents it in a multi-faceted manner with regards to content, form and technical possibilities. The reality of physicality is shown from several perspectives: in the form of pain, sickness and disability on the one hand, and in the overcoming of pain and in lusty experience on the other. Other works emanate from the artistic effigy of the body and pursue its transformation, destruction and reduction.
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Sunday, May 30th, 2010, 6 p.m., Metro Kino
The themes “pop-culture” and “society” are the two focal points of this programme, winding up with this year’s Oscar-winner in the category “animated short film”. Cinema and TV-culture partly provide a starting point for an atmospheric framework, critical-entertaining analysis, bawdy exaggeration or anarchic dismantling. To this the reality of war and suppression forms an opposite, in between and alongside the two extremes one can find collage-strategies and re-montage of the most diverse fragments of reality. The transformation of real space into a compressed nightmare.
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