Press Release
Goethe-Institut Presents: In Cooperation with the Short Film Festival Oberhausen
The Goethe-Institut presents Lebanese films at the renowned International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Curated by Nour Ouayda and Rami el Sabbagh, Prophecies from the Sea sheds light on the prophetic nature of cinematic works created in moments of transition. It is the second iteration of a unique partnership between the Oberhausen Festival and Goethe-Institutes worldwide.
Starting with the 2020 edition of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the festival and the Goethe-Institut have launched a cooperation entitled Goethe-Institut presents… to intensify a decades-long collaboration between the two cultural institutions. With the aim of strengthening both international cultural exchange and the networking of filmmakers, each year a Goethe-Institut abroad presents an insight into the respective artistic scene at the Oberhausen festival.
Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to hamper travelling, this year’s collaboration will be realised in an adapted format and will be presented as part of the online-only edition of the 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, where more than 400 short films, over 190 of them selected for the eight competitions, will be streamed from 1 to 10 May.
“We are going to reach the largest possible audience for the films and to guarantee the greatest security for our audience. We had to make this decision, like many other cultural institutions, against the background of a lack of reliable guidelines for opening up cultural institutions and staging cultural events on the part of German politics,” says festival director Lars Henrik Gass, explaining the decision. “However, we hope to be able to reach a worldwide audience again with an outstanding programme that we would never have reached in Oberhausen alone, and to contribute to the democratization of film culture.”
Alongside the Festival 2021 programme, Oberhausen, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Libanon, presents the film programme Prophecies from the Sea, curated by Nour Ouayda and Rami El Sabbagh.
"I am excited about this partnership with Oberhausen – and especially about the opportunity to work with two Lebanese curators and their perspective on filmmaking in Lebanon, past and present. If anything, these difficult times call for new ways of collaboration and partnership, in this case between Germany’s cultural institute abroad and two experts on filmmaking in Lebanon. The programme proposed by Nour and Rami reflects on films as a tool for decoding and contextualising catastrophic events and their history as well as future. We think that this reflection should be accessible to the audience of the Oberhausen Festival. And we are glad to support the international visibility from Lebanon”, underlines Konrad Siller, director of the Goethe-Institut Libanon.
To further the research, a second iteration of Prophecies from the Sea is scheduled in Lebanon in the summer of 2021 to present the works in their context and provide space for discussion about the programme and its themes.
Goethe-Institut presents…:
The Goethe-Institut Libanon is providing a limited number of free passes to the festival for interested people residing in Lebanon. As pre-registration is required via a link sent by the Festival, an email requesting a free pass should be sent to the Goethe-Institut by 26 April, 5.00 pm (EET) at the latest to the following address info-beirut@goethe.de with the following subject 67th Festival Oberhausen.