WE ARE ONLINE - www.kurzfilmtage.de

[Kurzfilmtage]

The relaunch is complete!

Streamings, databases, short film magazine and more are NOW online at:

www.kurzfilmtage.de

---------------------------------

Background information:

New Short Film Website

On 25 October 2001 the International Short Film Festival is unveiling a 
completely new website at www.kurzfilmtage.de. With its new design and 
structure, including streamings and a wide range of services added, the 
relaunch is not merely a reworked festival site, but instead represents a 
year-round Internet platform dedicated to promoting the international short 
film.

For six days each year, the Short Film Festival in Oberhausen puts on a 
successful international festival of the short film representing the most 
visible part of our work  but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Just 
below the surface, so to speak, lies a myriad of other activities in which 
the Short Film Festival is involved throughout the year, such as 
distributing short films, managing a comprehensive short film archive and 
putting out various publications. These are the activities that are 
spotlighted in the relaunch of our website on 25 October 2001, and that 
will be expanded considerably in the future.

The relaunch quite literally sets things in motion: over 50 short works are 
viewable by means of streaming in various sections of the website  for 
example, the award winning films of 2001 or selections from our 
distribution programme  and this number will increase to include over 80 
entries by the end of the year. The short films and clips are digitized and 
streamed by Germany’s largest alternative carrier and business provider, 
mediaWays GmbH. The Internet services provider has years of experience in 
streaming and is joining the www.kurzfilmtage.de project as Technical 
Support Partner.

Long-term plans include the presentation of works made exclusively for the 
Internet that cannot be shown offline. Currently, the Short Film Festival’s 
new website makes use of the Internet platform to provide practical 
services and database functions, accessed by users under the new categories 
Festival, Short Film Exchange and Magazine.


The new structure
In the Festival section, the user can find information and services in 
connection with the ”offline” aspect of the International Short Film 
Festival Oberhausen. The Short Film Exchange section is designated 
especially for expert and industry users: a film market database with some 
15,000 titles and the archive database with around 1,300 titles can be 
accessed by qualified visitors via a password (passwords can be obtained 
from the Festival, there is an access fee for entering the archive 
database). Accessible to all users are the distribution programme and 
festival publications, as well as a collection of links and numerous 
streamed film clips.

Finally, the magazine ”shortfilm.de” will report on the short film scene 
independently from the Festival itself. While the Short Film Festival acts 
here as mediator, the magazine is not designed to be a vehicle representing 
the voice of the Festival. In addition to a monthly theme article, the 
magazine will contain interviews, commentaries and news. Subscription to an 
e-mail newsletter will inform users in advance of upcoming topics. The main 
focus will be on the areas of service, news and film politics. In the 
mid-term, the magazine hopes to engage the participation of national and 
international partners, in order to provide the short film with an 
independent medium, bundling the varied activities surrounding this genre 
and representing them in a fitting manner.

”We see it as our responsibility to promote the short film both 
artistically and commercially, and not only during the Short Film Festival 
itself,” commented Ulrike Erbslöh, Managing Director of the Internationale 
Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen gGmbH and Project Manager for the website relaunch. 
”The Internet provides us with the ideal medium for working steadily and 
with international exposure. Our long-term objective is for a curator from 
Singapore, for example, who wishes to compile a programme of German short 
films, to be able to use our online resources at any time; or that 
filmmakers and film buffs from anywhere in the world can exchange views in 
the forum; or that a journalist seeking information on the topic of short 
film promotion can call up the pertinent themes and discussions in the 
magazine or submit his own comments  in short, the website is designed to 
have the potential to become a hub in the worldwide short film network.”

Oberhausen, 25 October 2001

Press contact: Sabine Niewalda
Tel +49 208 825-3073, Fax 825-5413, niewalda at kurzfilmtage.de
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen gGmbH
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
Grillostr. 34
D-46045 Oberhausen
Germany
Fon + 49 (0)208 825-3073
Fax + 49 (0)208 825-5413
www.kurzfilmtage.de