International Short Film Festival starts on 17th April in Dresden

19th Filmfest 2007
13th April 2007 - Dresden

19th Filmfest Dresden begins on Tuesday | Highlight: Award Ceremony on 21st April | Dieter Landuris, "Polarkreis 18", Rike Schmid, Hans-Werner Meyer and Marco Girnth as laudators | Juries also filled with prominent personalities | Two Audience Prizes to be awarded

The long wait is coming to an end: Next Tuesday (17th April) the curtains will be raised in the Metropolis festival cinema for the 19th Filmfest Dresden. The winners of the coveted Golden Horsemen will then be decided from eight International and five National Competitions. One highlight of the short film festival is the formal awarding of the prizes during the "Night of the Golden Horseman" gala event on Saturday, 21st April. This year's laudators, including the new pop stars from Dresden "Polarkreis 18", the actress Rike Schmid as well as her colleagues Dieter Landuris, Hans-Werner Meyer and Marco Girnth, have already confirmed their presence at the event. Between 17th and 22nd April a total of 366 shorts can be experienced on the big screens of the Metropolis festival cinema.

On 17th April at 19.30 the 19th Filmfest Dresden is celebrating its opening with the "International Competition 1", one of a total of 13 competitive programmes. 95 short films are competing in them for the nine Golden Horsemen. In addition, the 25 special programmes being screened during the six day event contains something for almost every taste. This year the highly popular "British Focus“ is the focus of special attention: It is celebrating its tenth birthday – with two separate programmes, a birthday party and a game with prizes.

During the festival week, Saturday is the day for which both the filmmakers and the audiences are excitedly waiting. As part of the "Night of the Golden Horsemen", the coveted film festival prizes will be presented – this year as well. The organisers have managed to gain illustrious guests to provide the laudations and hand over the prizes on 21st April (at 20:00). The Golden Horsemen will be awarded by the latest success story from Dresden, the band "Polarkreis 18", among others. In addition the well-known German cinema and TV actors Dieter Landuris, Rike Schmid, Hans-Werner Meyer and Marco Girnth will be present on the stage of the Metropolis to announce the juries' decisions.

The juries are also filled with prominent personalities. In the National Competition, the jury contains Sandra Hüller (actress in "Requiem" among others), Brigitte Kramer (drama consultant and producer for ZDF television among others) and Piotr J. Lewandowski (director). The international jury is composed of the filmmakers Ricardo Íscar (Spain), Etienne Desrosiers (Canada) and Isabelle Favez (Switzerland). The KlangMusikPreis – Best SoundScape Award will be decided by Prof. Enjott Schneider (composer of more than 300 film scores including "Stalingrad"), the music academic Dr. Larissa Kowal-Wolk as well as Frank Geißler and Robert Zimmermann from the European Centre for Arts Hellerau. Furthermore, the youth jury will also award a prize.

Filmfest Dresden is a film festival for the public especially. For this reason the audiences are also being given an opportunity to decide on their favourites. Two Audience Prizes will be awarded for films running in the National and the International Competitions, provided by the Sächsische Zeitung newspaper and the MDR broadcaster.

Filmfest Dresden 2007 is being held from 17th to 22nd April in the Metropolis festival cinema. For each programme, tickets cost EUR 5 at the box office and EUR 4.50 in advance from www.filmfest-dresden.de.

Stefan Bast
Press work on behalf of Filmfest Dresden

For the nineteenth time, Dresden is seeing great cinema in small bites. Beyond the normal images from film and TV, both young and established fi lmmakers are screening their latest masterpieces. Our selection committee chose 100 contributions from the number of entries in excess of 1,800 – and now it‘s time to vote. As always, the best short films will be awarded the “Golden Horseman“.

Furthermore, this year‘s special programmes offer fi lms from diverse genres and subjects in our traditional format. Only one aspect has exploded the tradition – the amount of fi lms in the special programmes has never been so extensive like in this year.
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PR agency Zastrow + Zastrow
Stefan Bast
Tel. +49(0)351/899110
Email bast@zzdd.de

This release was published on openPR.