Festival programme 2011

International Competition: Fiction and Documentary

Every story has its own appropriate length. It is a fact that a short film can often also be too long. It is also a fact that, despite their name, there is a trend for longer narrative styles in short films too. For the international competition for short feature and documentary films, “Fiction and Documentary”, this means that in 2011, despite receiving more than twice the amount of entries in comparison to last year, in the end fewer films made it into the final selection than in the year before. 29 short films from 18 countries are up against each other for the Vienna Short Film Award (worth 4.000 Euro, founded by the City of Vienna). For this category alone almost 2.000 films from 90 countries were entered.

International Competition: Animation Avantgarde

For the second time VIS presents, in close cooperation with ASIFA Austria, the international competition “Animation Avantgarde”, showing works from the fields of animation, experimental film, digital media and all other imaginable hybrids of these genres of contemporary audiovisual art. In this category we are looking for films that can broaden our horizons of experience and we are dedicated to further the exchange between the most diverse artistic practices – from avant-garde to pop culture, from animation to found footage and 3D computer animation.

Austrian Competition

This year the Austrian Short Film Award for the most impressive fictional, documentary, animated or experimental film from Austria will be awarded for the second time. While last year the prize, which is worth 2.000 Euros and was established in cooperation with the Verwertungsgesellschaft der Filmschaffenden (VDFS), felt like a necessary innovation, the national short film award already feels like a long-established component of the competition. An independent jury chooses the main prize winner from the 23 films that qualified for the entry this year, and also awards the new V.A.M. Emerging Talent Award, established this year and worth 1.000 Euro, for young and talented Austrian film makers.

Tributes

The yearly tributes acknowledge artists who helped define the world of short films and who caused a stir more than once. This year the international spotlight is on the British duo Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) who, in their fascinating works, seek to answer the question of what it is that holds together the world at its core. The national tribute is dedicated to comic artist Nicolas Mahler, who combines his animated oeuvre with inspiring highlights from the history of animated films.

New Communities

This year’s focus, which will be presented in eight programmes, takes a look at the “new society’s” closely interwoven networks, as the Utopia of “community” is at its peak thanks to the new collaborative possibilities of the Internet. The programme is dedicated to the media of film in social networks, activism in the net, as well as popular satire clips and the most beloved music videos according to a facebook-voting. Thrown into the bargain: SciFi at the Planetarium, highlights from “Animate Projects” at the Metro Kino and two panorama programmes from the Vienna Film Academy.

Specials

Vienna Short Film Forum

The first Vienna Short Film Forum aims at people and initiatives which dedicate their work to the genre of short film in the areas of education, financing, production and distribution. Its goal is to encourage exchange between the initiatives and the facilitation of mutual future networking. The Vienna Short Film Forum is the place to be when you want to get valuable inside information. Open to everyone, entry is free.

Film Education

Welcome to the short film world of the future. The winners of Get into Shorts films are presented and awarded in three programmes. This competition for short films created in Austrian classrooms is organized by VIS for the first time. A "Best of Clang:Bilder" presents the animation film education project of ASIFA Austria.