"The Way We Live"
3rd International Festival of Short Films
15 - 18 November 2001, Munich
The Festival of Short Films on the general theme of "The Way We Live" returns this November after a brief hiatus. For the third time, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Behinderung und Medien (Disability and Media Association) is hosting this international festival of short films dealing with disability.
One often hears that people with disabilities are rarely seen on the cinema or television screen. Yet this accusation is unjustified. Practically the opposite is true, both in fiction and documentary films. Documentary filmmakers often take a particularly keen interest in groups on the fringes of society, in extreme forms of human existence. Screenwriters and feature film directors exhibit a marked need for prototypical outsiders, for characters with unmistakable characteristics, for plot twists - such as accidents and illnesses. To put it provocatively: in the media, people with disabilities are quite "en vogue".
The question is, though, which images are used or redefined in numerous movies. Very often, unfortunately, we see the same old cliches: fantasies of monstrous freaks or pitiful problem children - products of either dread or wishful thinking; all those unbelievable success stories of disabled protagonists who prevail over all obstacles; the tear-jerking tales of hard strokes of fate. The one thing missing among all these extremes is that vast field called "everyday reality".
The festival "The Way We Live" presents 35 documentary, fiction and animation films from 19 countries, which together present an authentic picture of life with human disability. These films have been selected from the 287 films from 46 countries submitted to this year's competition.
This year's Competition Screenings invite the audience to re-examine truisms and gain new insights. Three of the highlights are: King Gimp, the Oscar-winning portrait of the physically disabled artist Dan Keplinger, and the award-winning films Siostry (Sisters) by Pawel Lozinski, a documentary theater of the absurd, and Aegypten (Egypt) by Kathrin Resetarits, a humorous expedition into the world of sign language.
Undiscovered gems
In addition to the numerous films already celebrated at other festivals, "The Way We Live" will, once again, present numerous undiscovered gems. One special focus will be on how people live with disabilities in countries whose everyday conditions are not very familiar to Western audiences. In Kogoz Uicha (House of Cardboard), Shukhrat Makhmudov documents how, in Uzbekistan, joint holidays are organized for the first time for disabled and non-disabled children. Andreevy Kamni (Andrzey's Stones) tells the story of a former circus clown in Belarus, who looks for a new job after an accident. Ramuné Kudzmanaité's Ketursparné (Four-Winged) from Lithuania is a cinematic essay about the artistic talent and imagination of mentally disabled children.
Dramatizations
Short fiction films (dramatizations) will play a greater role this year than at previous festivals. The Brazilian film Cão Guia (Guide Dog) and the comedy A qui mieux mieux (Top This) from France are tales of power and manipulation. Marty, the protagonist of Short by Imogen Murphy, makes up for inferior physical size with even greater charm and self-irony. What does a young woman in a wheelchair dream of? Ça roule pas (That won't go) answers this question in two minutes. In English Goodbye, Andy Heathcote describes a very special psychological showdown between a boy who has run away from home with his mentally disabled sister and a woman who has left her husband. Their paths cross at a country train station. All three need each other, but nobody gets exactly what he or she wants.
Documentaries
Documentary films make up the largest number of festival screenings: I Nie Opuscze Cie Az Do Smierci (...Until Death Do Us Part) portrays two men, one mentally disabled, the other physically, who have made an unconventional pact for life. Showing nothing but children's telephone calls, Wewnetrzny 55 (Extension 55) documents their daily life in a rehabilitation center. In her film Meine Mutter (My Mother), Fanny Bräuning tells the story of her mother, who is stricken with multiple sclerosis. La longeur et la largeur du ciel (The Length and Breadth of the Sky) by Dominique Margot is the portrait of the charismatic actor Jean-Claude Grenier, who died in 1999. Extraordinary actors are also the central figures of Mirjam Kubescha's Ecce Homo, a cinematic look at the troupe around Pippo del Bono.
Many of this year's films test the limits of the documentary genre, in terms of both content and form. In Andrea Bala's Wasser kommt vom Meer (Water Comes from the Sea), a deaf and blind man gets behind the steering wheel of a car - a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream. The Iranian film Naghsh (The Role) portrays people in a mental institution who would like to make a film - and then itself becomes an ambiguous game within a game. How does someone travel who cannot move? Korstaan Mahal und Jo Zahn's experimental documentary ingedanken - 4maleinereise (inthought - 4timesajourney) deals with the failed examination of a problem. In Iain Piercy's Feeling Space, two blind men wander around Glasgow describing their perceptions - animation complements the real images. In the animated documentary Snack and Drink, Bob Sabiston has filmed an actual situation in the daily life of an autistic youth and processed it on a computer.
Animation
Naturally this year's program also includes "proper" animated films: Grand Mal is Jack Hague's attempt to visually represent an epileptic fit. Adam Benjamin Elliot's trilogy has been celebrated at numerous festivals. With its laconic humor, the films portray the director's own family. We will be showing two parts, Cousin and Brother.
Screenings, prizes & awards ceremony
Directors and many cast and crew members will be present to answer audience questions after the screenings.
An international professional jury will award prizes worth a total of DM 17,000. The festival audience will award the Audience Award of the Cultural Foundation of the Stadtsparkasse München, the Savings Bank of Munich.
The International Competition awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, 18 November. It will begin at 6 p.m. and will be followed by a reception at the Stadtcafé.
In addition to the Competition Screenings, there will be a Special Screening for school classes and a workshop entitled "Illness and Disability in Fiction Films".
All films will be screened in the original version, with German and English translations provided via headsets. Sign-language interpretation will be provided if requested.
VHS tapes of all the films submitted to the 1995, 1997 and 2001 competitions are available for private screening.
Join us, as we look forward to a festival which invites you, the audience, to reflect in a different manner upon the meaning of the word "disability".
For further information about the program please visit our web site www.abm-medien.de/filmbuero/2001_e.htm. Photos are available for download: http://filmbuero.abm-medien.de/presse.htm.
"The Way We Live"
3rd International Festival of Short Films
15 - 18 November 2001
Hosted by the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Behinderung und Medien e.V."
For further information, contact:
Internationales Kurzfilmfestival "Wie wir leben"
Festival director: Karl Heinz Gruber, Press and Guest Relations: Barbara Sabel
Bonner Platz 1/V, D-80803 Munich
Phone (+49-89) 307 992-20, fax (+49-89) 307 992-22
E-mail: festival@abm-medien.de
www.abm-medien.de/filmbuero/2001_e.htm
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