19th Stuttgart Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded Media

Film Video New Media Installation Performance Workshop Theory
Festival: 19.-22. January 2006 • Warm Up: 12.-17. January 2006
Exhibition: 18. January – 19. February 2006
Filmhaus (FH), Wuerttembergischer Kunstverein (WKV), Oberwelt (OW) and other locations

Mondo Cannibale
With the slightly martial sounding motto „Mondo Cannibale“ the Stuttgart Filmwinter enters the 19th round. However the Filmwinter has not transformed into a horror or zombie festival but understands the motto as a question asking what has happened to the middle between religious fundamentalism and snuff-capitalism? The very middle made out as the new social power in Western countries by the media during the New Economy boom in the 90ies. It is increasingly suggested that the presence is solely marked by conflict and fights – be it the individual fight to survive in a time of 1-Euro-jobs, globalisation and unemployment or as a stylised “clash of cultures”. The Filmwinter can certainly not give an answer to the problems of the world with its programmes and contents but in a special way takes the antagonism between the returning Social Darwinism and fundamentalism as its theme. And yet Wand 5, organizers of the Filmwinter Stuttgart, wouldn’t let anything stop them from taking a little digression into the cinematic genre of “Mondo Cannibale”. Florian Cramer, literary academic, net activist, and Exploitation film collector from Berlin will present Italian Cannibal Films of the 70s and 80s in a lecture. Katja Bienert, icon of the Mono Cannibale genre and female lead in Jess Franco’s “Mondo Cannibale 4” of 1983 will be present as Special Guest at the Filmwinter. Her career as an actress started in 1979 with the Christiane F. sexploitation “Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo” (“The school girls of the meeting point Zoo”) and went from “Schloß Pompom Rouge” (“Castle Pompom Rouge”) to the TV daily soap “Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten” (“Good times, bad times”). In 2002 she returned to a shoot with Jess Franco for the film “Killer Barbys vs. Dracula”.

In spite of its knack for (cultural) offsides the Filmwinter continuously guarantees international film and media art: more than 1500 contributions in the areas of film and video, micro cinema, new media, installation, performance, theory, and workshop were sent in from all continents. Around 80 films and videos, 10 installations, and 20 pieces of work from the new media section (online and offline works) were chosen from all these submissions. Two international juries for film and video as well as new media and installation will give out awards totalling 12,500 Euro. An extensive supporting and music programme plus a warm up programme (11.-17. January) will add to the competition sections. The main festival locations will be the Filmhaus – for film and video shows – and the centrally situated Württembergischer Kunstverein for the exhibitions of media installations and as a media lounge where visitors can have a look at the online and offline works in a relaxed atmosphere. Further highlights will be the theme programmes “Video Art as People’s Art” and “Public Domain” as well as the works of the two British filmmakers Malcolm LeGrice, an important representative of Expanded Cinema and structural film as well as documenta participant in 1977, and Ian Helliwell, an experimental filmmaker and musician from Brighton.

http://www.filmwinter.de