This year I had the honour to be in a jury at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. Before I was invited to go there, I had never really heard about the festival, or about Oberhausen as a town. But it turned out to be a very rewarding experience.

What is the festival all about? This year was the 55^th festival in Oberhausen. It is a very small festival (compared to the ones I have been to, anyway). There are only about five cinema screens, one festival lounge (for eating and parties), one festival space (for discussions), a guest office (for accreditation) and a press office (for Internet). That’s it. And everything is small and in very short walking distance from each other. This, of course, is absolutely brilliant because, as guests, you have no cars, so you have to walk everywhere. If you go to the Berlin Festival, for example, the cinemas are quite close to each other but the parties and other events are at completely different places and you have to take several subways or buses to get there.

Another good thing about a small festival is meeting people. You see more or less the same people every day, so you remember them and can always find someone to talk to.

The festival is very international and the main language is English. All the films have English subtitles (except for one French film which had no subtitles at all…what a cliché! Of course, the French expect everyone to speak their language…).

Jury Duties: Being in a jury is fantastic! We were put up in a very nice, four star hotel, which made a fun change to my usual travel lodgings of tents, B&B’s, motels and the likes. We were invited, or better, obliged to attend the evening events, such as the official opening of the festival (and the fun VIP party afterwards) and the awards ceremony at the end (if you have ever been at a festival, you might know how difficult it is to get into these kind of events). But the best thing about being in the jury is the accreditation. You can get into any screening you want to see (on the downside, you don’t actually have time to watch other screenings apart from the international competition). In the screenings that we had to go to, there were even seats reserved for us.

The duties we had to do were to watch the films that were in the competition (about 50 more or less short films) and decide which one deserved an award or an honorary mention. This might sound easier than it actually is. There were a lot of great films. And, being five people from different backgrounds with different tastes, we had a real discussion.

The winner of our Jury (there were at about 6 juries over all) was the Austrian film “Elefantenhaut” (Elephant Skin). It is a film about a woman who is working in a factory and living a simple life. She has to look after her mother and has no time to herself. Although the story of the film is sad, in the end she is a very strong person. The people in the film are not trained actors but they are unbelievably good. Although it was not my first choice for the award, I am very happy with the decision. Our statement was: “Although the film shows people in miserable surroundings, they prove themselves to be loving, strong and caring. It takes a contemporary view of a current topic and draws our attention to possibilities of life we believed lost.”

The Special Mention went to the rather short but excellent British film “The Conservatory.” It is very cute and I am sure will be successful.  Our statement: “In a short and humorous way the film shows how the unspoken takes on form, inflicts injury and is overcome.”

My personal winner: A collaboration of British and American filmmakers produced the wonderful film “Nora.” It starts out being a documentary about a woman growing up in Zimbabwe. It then turns into a sort of dance film and about the woman’s (Nora) life. It tells her story, using dance (she is now a dancer in New York) in the most beautiful way. The colours and the dancing are incredible. On the surface it is simply a beautiful film but underneath it is a struggle with living in Zimbabwe, coming of age, having to be strong and finding one’s character.

Oberhausen town: It is quite a small town in the mid-west part of Germany. It was completely bombed during the war (I assume it was anyway) and has been rebuilt in the very ugly style of the post-war period. It is not a nice town. It is also extremely empty. It felt like the festival people were the only ones there. Very odd. But this really doesn’t matter because all we saw was the inside of the cinema. One day we went to a museum in a castle which was very pretty.