Filmfest Dresden
08—13.04.2025
Dresden. Cradle of chocolate manufacturing, center of German animation and home of Filmfest Dresden, first held in 1989 (only a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall). If you drive across the Elbe towards Neustadt today, it’s hard to imagine that in recent years the headlines here have been mainly for anti-democratic protest marches—not least because this part of the city is home to Filmfest with its beautiful cinemas, alternative bars, and popular film programmes and is committed to a cosmopolitan and tolerant Saxony.
Those who travel to Filmfest Dresden (the fact that the festival is exclusively about short films is only revealed by its subtitle) will encounter a motivated team (Talking Shorts co-initiator Anne Gaschütz is the best example of this!), lively interest from the local population including long discussions with filmmakers and curators, and some of the highest prize money in the entire short film scene (a total of 67000 euros). And for some years now, Filmfest Dresden, specialising in short fiction and animated films, has also been exemplary regarding accessibility. You see, Dresden is almost always worth a visit. Filmfest Dresden definitely always is.
Text by Daniel Hadenius-Ebner
Reading List
On the Failure and Promise of Language
Interview with Vyacheslav Turyanytsya
Genealogy of Violence by Mohamed Bourouissa
Pavel Mozhar on Unwanted Kinship
Yann Gonzalez on Hideous
Juck [Thrust] by Olivia Kasterbring, Julia Gumpert, Ulrika Bandeira
Shrooms by Jorge Jácome
Sorry I am late (but I brought a choir) by Håkon Anton Olavsen
Sit. Play. Stay. by Cecilie Flyger Hansen
Reading List
Oyu by Atsushi Hirai
Carlos Pereira on Slimane
Hito by Stephen Lopez
Mast-del by Maryam Tafakory
Night Shift by Kayije Kagame, Hugo Radi
Zima by Tomek Popakul, Kasumi Ozeki
A Study of Empathy by Hilke Rönnfeldt
The Veiled City by Natalie Cubides-Brady
The Miracle by Nienke Deutz
A Kind of Testament by Stephen Vuillemin
27 by Flóra Anna Buda
The Un-chaotic Cabinet That Wishes For Me To Sleep by Cilian Laurence Green
La Perra by Carla Melo Gampert
Leandro Goddinho and Paulo Menezes on Paradise Europe
Land der Berge by Olga Kosanović
Lake of Fire by Neozoon
Ardent Other by Alice Brygo
How Different Sources of Capital Direct Our Personal Agency
Reading List
An Avocado Pit by Ary Zara
Asterión by Francesco Montagner
Lake of Fire by Neozoon
Short Films From The Basque Country and Catalonia
Maria Schneider, 1983 by Elisabeth Subrin
Staging Death by Jan Soldat
It’s Raining Frogs Outside by Maria Estela Paiso
Skinned by Joachim Hérissé
Simo by Aziz Zoromba
Flores del otro Patio by Jorge Cadena
