SWF beyond borders
6 days of festival experiences , 65 films in 4 competitions , more than 150 films from all over the world in non-competition program . 9th edition of Short Waves Festival aims to promote diversity and openness to the world , because in the absence of these concepts short cinema could never exist . While designing this year ’ s festival program , intended to focus on showing how illusory the geographic and stylistic borders really are , as well as expose the fluidity of division between the real and virtual world . The focus that we want to convey by means of “ beyond borders ” motto is hardly geographic . We will be concentrating on artists originating from Germany , yet functioning within the European film industry and creating international co-productions . In the vein of the idea of diminishing borders between various art domains , we will be exploring the relationship between film and visual art , as we believe that the most interesting things in film occur in the space between the cinematic black box and white cube at the gallery .
Fear not – our repertoire will not be solely limited to video art or difficult at times experimental film . Short films have an immense cognitive potential and in the age of post-truth and superficiality we are trying to promote attentiveness . We believe that film may raise awareness of social issues and constitute a foundation for discussion on the surrounding world . Hence , the program includes many titles exposing the refugee crisis ( such as : “ A Man Returned ”, “ 9 days from my Window in Aleppo ”, “ Il Silenzio ”), as well as the situation of economic migrants in Europe (“ Departure ”, “ The World we live in . Wandering Workers in Germany ”). Thanks to excellent short documentaries , the viewers will also have the opportunity to watch a close-up on modern patriotism (“ Polonaise ”, “ World War Cup ”), and a difficult situation of women in remote parts of the world (“ Flower of a Thousand Colours ”, “ Moriom ”).
Finally , we will consider the most complicated of the borders – borders of communication between people and tangible social divisions . We believe that regardless of opinion or stance , it is good to talk (” Three Conversations on Life ”) and fight for the freedom of speech . That is the reason why the symbol of this year ’ s edition is a patchwork flag , for it is diverse and ambiguous just like the Short Waves Festival program .
Emilia Mazik program coordinator
11