Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
04.11—09.11.2025
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur proves that the most exciting festivals often occur in small towns—probably because not much else happens there year-round. But the festival, near Zurich airport, is not just a local celebrity. Year after year, it attracts countless industry guests and filmmakers from all over the world, who commute between the Casino (the headquarters), the city theater, and the other venues, and along the short distances, not only enjoy networking but also look out for affordable food and drinks (after all, it is Switzerland).
It is interesting to note that a festival that, under director John Canciani, has positioned itself more than ever before as a figurehead of cinema and film art but does not play in a single cinema and instead puts a great deal of effort into setting up its own infrastructure for the best possible film projections every year. While this speaks not least for the cultural-political necessity of the event on a local level, the international scene is most impressed by the excellent organisation, the elaborately curated programmes, and the secret star of the festival: a small Thai karaoke bar, where (almost) all industry guests indulge in their secret passion on one evening.
Text by Daniel Hadenius-Ebner
Reading List
On Cinema’s Ideal(s) of Masculinity
Genealogy of Violence by Mohamed Bourouissa
Cherries by Vytautas Katkus
The Oasis I Deserve by Inès Sieulle
Mast-del by Maryam Tafakory
Alpha Kings by Faye Tsakas, Enrique Pedráza-Botero
Nikola Ilić on Exit Through the Cuckoo’s Nest
A Present Light by Diogo Costa Amarante
One Thousand And One Attempts To Be An Ocean by Wang Yuyan
Yann Gonzalez on Hideous
City of Poets by Sara Rajaei
It’s Raining Frogs Outside by Maria Estela Paiso
Isadora Neves Marques on Becoming Male in the Middle Ages
Nastia Korkia on Dreams About Putin
Watch The Fire Or Burn Inside It by Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel
Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays by Christian Avilés
Hardly Working by Total Refusal
27 by Flóra Anna Buda
Flores del otro Patio by Jorge Cadena
Reading List
Basil Da Cunha on 2720
Oyu by Atsushi Hirai
Shrooms by Jorge Jácome
La Perra by Carla Melo Gampert
Zima by Tomek Popakul, Kasumi Ozeki
Bruce LaBruce On “Queering” Art As A Political Act
2nd Person by Rita Barbosa
Alpha Kings by Faye Tsakas, Enrique Pedráza-Botero
Primetime Mother by Sonny Calvento
Reading List
Neighbour Abdi by Douwe Dijkstra
backflip by Nikita Diakur
Mulika by Maisha Maene
10 Missed Calls by Coline Confort
Flores del otro Patio by Jorge Cadena
Lake of Fire by Neozoon
Reading List
Reading List
A Lack of Clarity by Stefan Kruse Jørgensen
Heaven Reaches Down To Earth by Tebogo Malebogo
The Unseen River by Phạm Ngọc Lân
Drought by Remi Itani
Menarca by Lillah Halla
