[artinfo] Oberhausen 2002: Special Program "Catastrophe"

[Kurzfilmtage]

48th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2  7 May 2002
Special Program "Catastrophe"

In 2002, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen will once again 
organize a large-scale thematic Special Program. Its title: "Catastrophe". 
The Program whose planning started in May 2000 will examine the ways in 
which catastrophes today become media events. It is based on the assumption 
that catastrophe is the omnipresent and unsettling shadow of progress and 
that in it society envisages the fascinating picture of its own extinction. 
"Catastrophe" will examine images of catastrophe and how images regulate 
the ambivalence between attraction and fear.

The attacks in the USA on 11th September and their unforeseeable 
consequences have rendered this subject unexpectedly topical. We have come 
to the conclusion, though, that the necessity to discuss and analyse the 
attacks and their consequences within the context and from the perspective 
of a film festival is not put into question by the changed geopolitical 
situation. The events of September 11th and their consequences will be 
integrated into curator Florian Wuest's (Rotterdam) programs, but the 
general approach and structure of the Special Program "Catastrophe" will 
remain unchanged.

The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen will also go ahead as 
planned with the key visual of the 48th edition which features a plane. The 
design was developed together with renowned German agency BOROS, using an 
image created by American artist Doug Aitken whose films "Blow Debris" and 
"Eraser" were shown at past festivals in Oberhausen and were a major 
influence in the conception of the Special Program.

Oberhausen, 17 October 2001

Contact press: Sabine Niewalda
Tel. +49 (0)208 825-3073, Fax 825-5413, niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen gGmbH
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D-46045 Oberhausen
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International Short Film Festival Oberhausen