Perhaps ironically, one of the most experimental pieces  in the festival line-up this year utilised A.I. for it’s visuals. Edgar Pera’s hypnotic epistolary essay film, Telepathic Letters, created new universes through which two of the director’s favourite authors, Fernando Pessoa and H.P. Lovecraft could commune. However, far from machine-produced fare, Pera’s film bore the undeniable hallmarks of its human creator and subjects, something that resonated throughout the programme. Something that is perhaps inevitable for a festival like this, which takes a boutique and personal approach to curating a programme of genuinely independent work from around the globe

Founded over three decades ago by Torsten Neumann, who remains its avuncular host to this day, the festival has a reputation for showcasing rock’n’roll indie cinema that challenges social mores and cinematic conventions with aplomb and gives a platform to new genre work that might be overlooked elsewhere on the circuit. This edition was no exception, with its central must-attend event of the weekend being the cult-movie mashup, One-Way Ticket to the Other Side. A live musical performance by the Belgian Cold Wave/Electro Rock duo Severine Cayron and Jerome Vandewattyne, better known as Pornographie Excusive. A feature film featuring shorts by various Oldenburg alums – the aforementioned Edgar Pera, Douglas Buck, Jen Gatien, Katsuki Kurotanagi, and Martina Shone Radunksi, amongst others – embedded in a Trash-Humpers-esque framing narrative. If that wasn’t all punk enough, the screening took place in the rarified confines of the city’s beautiful Staatstheater.

But daring didn’t just come in the form of Oldenburg’s playful presentation, but also in the films themselves. At the awards ceremony on Sunday evening, Martina Shone Radunski and Lana Cooper’s new feature Ascent – Flieg Steil won the festival’s trademark award for audacity for its genre-blending look at politics and radicalism in the Berlin underground scene. It was far from the only film that could lay claim to such an award, with Nicolai Schumann’s one-man-show featuring an audacious central performance from Edward Hogg as a man trapped in a concrete box, The Lonely Musketeer, a real highlight, while Max Train’s James, a unconventional noirish comedy caper about a legendary bicycle scooped the festival’s overall Best Film award, on audience votes.

That audience was in impressive attendance throughout, with one screening of Santiago Mohar Volkow’s glorious satirical farce A History of Love and War so packed out that the auditorium had to be furnished with additional chairs and people stood in at the back and in the aisles. Mohar Volkow took a photograph of the gathered crowd, sure that his producer wouldn’t believe him if he described the scene. A History of Love and War also took home a trophy, winning the award for the ‘Spirit of Cinema’. It was part of a strong Latin-American showing alongside Camila Beltran’s arresting genre-inflected coming-of-ager Mi Bestia, and short film awardee Nostalgia of a (Still) Alive Heart from Diego Gaxiola.

Equally well attended were the festival’s two sidebars. The retrospective strand featured a selection of films by German genre specialist Dominik Graf, and the Saturday night show of the director’s cut of his 1994 crime thriller Die Sieger played to a packed house, with many viewers revisiting the film for the second or third time. The festival’s ‘tribute’ strand paid homage to two artists from Myanmar who are currently in exile after the military coup and trying to use cinema to raise awareness – Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu. The festival’s desire to highlight their plight, and also raise funds for their filmmaking charity, was just another example of Oldenburg’s commitment to supporting independent filmmakers, no matter the situation.

This spirit came up at various points throughout the festival, with many creators echoing the sentiments of Truman Kewley in the article we published during the festival. Whether speaking to filmmakers in person, hearing them discuss during their post-screening Q&As, or on stage when collecting their awards, the sense of community and support they felt both in being selected by Oldenburg and then their experience of being here was palpable. In terms of the festival circuit, it might seem like an outlier, but its ethos is evidently central to cultivating new talent and pushing boundaries. Long may it continue.

German Independence Award for Best Short Film
Nostalgia of a (Still) Alive Heart
Directed by Diego Gaxiola

German Independence Award – Audacity Award
Ascend – Flieg Steil
Directed by Martina Schöne-Radunski

German Independence Award – Spirit of Cinema
A History of Love and War
Directed by Santiago Mohar Volkow

Hans Ohlms Prize for Best First Film
Baby Brother
Directed by Michael J. Long

Seymour Cassel Acting Awards
Best Actor
Time Blake Nelson
for Bang Bang

Best Actress
Aki Kigoshi
for A Wasted Night

Written and directed by Antonin Bonnot, this placid, short drama is quotidian in its atmosphere and quietly profound in its aims. Taking place across a single 24-hour period, it depicts a day in the life of the octogenarian, Daniel (Vincent Grass) living alone in a rural farmhouse. On this day, Daniel wakes to find that today feel different, and he knows that he needs to make the most of it. A moving evocation of reflection and gratitude, Bonnot’s short received its world premiere at the 2024 Oldenburg Film Festival.

Perhaps surprisingly, and most refreshingly, despite the strange sensation that his time might be limited, Daniel doesn’t immediately begin trying to cram in as many experiences as possible, or change his way of living for a day. Instead, he savours the life he leads and adds small treats and moments of nostalgia to his usual routine. He still collects the eggs from his hens ready to donate to his neighbour, he still slips into a gentle sleep in front of the television in the afternoon – but on this day he also takes some time to go through old photographs of his wife and allows himself a glass of expensive-looking red wine. He leaves a message on his son’s answering machine requesting a call back from his grandchildren.

Bonnot’s film is suitably unadorned for a depiction of such a humble individual. Simple, rather than simplistic, it allows room for the rhythms of Daniel’s to come to their own slow conclusion. Marc Stef’s cinematography is elegant and composed, but with an almost documentary air, and the editing is similarly unobtrusive. Bonnot’s screenplay doesn’t labour Daniel’s history, but it conveys the sense that he is someone who has not taken centre stage for a long time an At Dawn grants him to opportunity to take it for one last time. It’s poignancy, for both protagonist and viewer, lies in the act of reflection,

Director, screenplay: Antonin Bonnot
Cast: Vincent Grass, Anne Cornu
Producer: Claude Lelouch, Anne Gros, Antonin Bonnot
Cinematography: Marc Stef
Editing: Antonin Bonnot, Sarah Grosset
Make up: Manon Lamard
Music: Partit
Sound: Gautier Aubry
Production companies: Les Ateliers du Cinema, Les Films 13 (France)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In French
25 minutes

Read more of our short film coverage over at Verdict Shorts

Stopped at a checkpoint on the way to Tehran, 10-year-old Amin (Parham Gholamlou) falls under the suspicion of a guard (Alireza Sanifar) because he claims to be travelling alone. Near him, a father (Sadegh Borghei) and his young son are also called over to the guard’s office due to not being able to produce the correct papers and guard’s suspicion that they are Afghans. When the guards find 200 grams of cocaine on Amin, they’re put in the position of pressuring him to give up the people who forced him to smuggle it.

While it may only have a slight runtime, Mirazei’s film feels fitting in the tradition of Iranian cinema that places its characters into difficult ethical dilemmas. Here the guard is faced with the prospect of having to send the 10-year-old to juvenile detention as he won’t talk, and of turning around the father who claims he’s trying to seek medical attention for his own boy in Tehran.

Mirzaei is evidently an assured presence behind the camera, getting a fantastic performance from the young Gholamlou as well as the two more experienced thesps, Sanifar and Borghei. Having also written the screenplay, he also demonstrates his skill in ratcheting the tension of drama of the scenario pitch-perfectly to a moment of extreme heightened emotion in its closing moments. Alone Together is a film about the difficult decisions people must take, and the chances that are presented to do the right thing.

Director, screenplay: Omid Mirzaei
Cast: Alireza Sanifar, Parham Gholamlou, Sadegh Borghei, Mohammad Movahednia, Saba Amiri
Producer: Saeed Khani
Cinematography: Mehrdad Afrasiabi
Editing: Pegah Ahmadi
Make up: Hadi Hashemi
Music: Mahdi Karami
Sound: Zohreh Ali Akbari
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In Persian
15 minutes

Read more of our short film coverage over at Verdict Shorts

The film was submitted to Oldenburg shortly after the military coup. A few short months later, accusations were made that Na Gyi and his partner, Paing Phyo Thu – as well as various other artists – were using their popularity to undermine the regime. The couple fled, while Eaindra Kyaw Zin, co-lead in What Happened to the Wolf? was arrested and incarcerated without due process, like many others. Understandably moved by the ongoing situation, Oldenberg’s response this year was to a present a small programme of the films Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu have made together, both before and since their exile. The intention is two-fold; to raise awareness about the plight of opponents to the regime in Myanmar and to raise money for Artists’ Shelter, the charity the pair have co-founded.

Encompassing three screenings across the festival, the tribute strand included two feature films Mi (2019) and the previously mentioned What Happened to the Wolf? (2021), which were both made prior to the coup. There was then a screening of short films that have been made from exile, that are expressly concerned with highlighting the human rights abuses that have been suffered by the people of Myanmar who dare to dissent: My Lost Nation (2022), Our Turn! (2023) and Guilt (2024). The screenings have been well-attended across the board. The festival director asked all attendees at the opening ceremony to raise three fingers in the salute of the resistance movement in Myanmar, so a photograph could be sent to the filmmakers who, for obvious reasons, could not be in attendance.

Given the significant difference in filmmaking style and subject matter between the pre- and post-2021 films, it makes some sense to discuss them separately. Both Mi and What Happened to the Wolf? are melodramas, though in very different modes. Mi is based on a classic 1950s novel of Myanmar by Kyi Aye and stars Paing Phyo Thu as the eponymous character. It’s monochrome, noirish, and overwrought – much like the source material by all accounts – and presents a portrait of carefree young woman whose spirit – and whose enjoyment in going out drinking with men – was at odds with the conservative society she lived in. The actress is enthralling in the lead. Intended to be elusive and mysterious to the men who fall about her, she plays it perfectly all the way to the characters’ bitter end.

She is again captivating in What Happened to the Wolf? in which she stars opposite Eaindra Kyaw Zin. They play two terminally ill women who meet in hospital and develop a deep – perhaps romantic – connection in their illness and their desire to pass away on their own terms. A contemporary story, it is lighter on the stylish shorthand of Mi, but maintains a similar pitch of heightened emotion, particularly in its final third where earlier humour gives way to earnestness. It remains a poignant exploration of facing the end, though.

Understandably, there is a significant shift after 2021 and the three films the pair have made are all direct calls to arms. My Lost Nation is a very brief portrait in which a member of the resistance visits his best friend in a nearby village. He tries to comfort her about the future, before she reveals that he is already dead, and comes to visit her each night, unaware. Our Turn! Is a more layered piece, depicting the lives of several residents of a small village who have, each in their own way, suffered at the hands of the junta – from a football player losing his leg, to a mother losing a child. They each struggle to adjust and to find a way to live beyond their grief.

The most recent film in the programme, Guilt, is the most directly political of the three – which is saying something – and intercuts between two stories. That of a man imprisoned in an interrogation centre, and the journey of his partner trying to flee to safety across the Thai border. It’s the most hard-hitting of the three, with the depictions of violence against the inmates imprisoned for their defiance and the arduous journey through the jungle are particularly stomach-churning.

The films all end with information about the situation; a video introduction sent by the filmmakers also acted as a call for support and for the spreading of the word. In its way, the Oldenburg festival has undertaken the cause with gusto and the films on show – particularly the shorts – highlight just why that is so desperately necessary.

Re-framing an infamous sliver of 19^th century history, the film combines the aesthetics of that time with elements of modernity to create a surreal vision of Mexico befitting the similarly bizarre story that is going to take place in it. Inspired by the ill-fated monarchy and subsequent execution of Maximilian I of Mexico, it presents him as a real estate baron who comes a cropper when his development of a gaudy monstrosity of an outlet mall prompts reprisals from local guerillas. Originally screening back at Rotterdam earlier in the year, Volkow’s new film is now part of the line-up at this year’s Oldenburg Film Festival.

Discussion around the film — a deadpan farce of the most absurd kind — has mentioned its kinship with the style of filmmakers like Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Aki Kaurismaki and, while all of these are apt — particularly given the mannered mode of the drama -– such comparisons don’t quite convey the outright chaos of Volkow’s vision. This a world of macabre slapstick, where dismembered limbs spray ketchup-red gore over onlookers, where local politicians are subjected to orgiastic bribes, where men can bargain their way back to the world of the living with talking dogs, and where stag parties in Acapulco end up in glorious bloodbaths.

The plot follows the travails of Pepe Sanchez Campo (Andrew Leland Rogers), a piggish property magnate, and his beloved, Constanza (Lucia Gomez-Robledo). Pepe has plans to build a gigantic mall and casino complex called “Mictlan” – named, perhaps appropriately, for the Aztec underworld – but runs into trouble when a local militia, called the Revolutionary Nomad Commune, resist his encroachment onto the land. As Pepe’s conflict with these people escalates, so too does the ire of Teo (Dario Yazbek Bernal), Constanza’s cousin and paramour who is jealous of the couple’s forthcoming nuptials and plans sabotage. As various characters are humiliated, maimed, and die in increasingly grotesque and hilarious ways, Pepe and Constanza try to find ways to endure.

Colonialist expansion is clearly in the crosshairs of Volkow’s unrelenting screenplay, with the short-lived and failed kinship of Maximilian a famous rejection of monarchy in Mexico with the immediate restoration of the republic after his death in 1867. Here it is combined wholesale with corporate greed and corruption to expand its scope, presenting the ridiculousness of Pepe’s ability to get his own way with money and influence while the only people able to genuinely stop him are those standing up for a free Mexico. The wild timelessness of the visuals also brings the story into the modern day with every scene combining the aesthetics of the 19^th century with the contemporary. Pepe and Constanza are dresses in what initially seem like formal dress of the period, but with modernisations; Constanza’s dress is at one point revealed to be a jumpsuit, there is a recurring NSYNC ringtone, Pepe travels around in. stretch limousine. The garish trappings of today only serve to heighten the sense of ostentation.

This is also aided by the aforementioned stiffness and theatricality of the performance styles, and Volkow and his cinematographer Adrian Cores also adopt some compositional elements of Wes Anderson’s style to heighten the silliness. The film looks nothing like as twee as something by Anderson, but the central framing and stillness of the American filmmaker’s set-ups are evoked here.

While A History of Love and War feels fairly off the wall from its opening moments – a video pitch for funding from Pepe in which he dresses in a builder’s outfit and flies around a horrible 3D visualisation of Mictlan – but it is during its second half that the strangeness verges into the unhinged, and it is an absolute riot. In continually increasing the daftness of what is happening, the humour never jumps the shark and remains bitingly, laugh out loud funny throughout.

Director, screenplay: Santiago Mohar Volkow
Cast: Lucia Gomez-Robledo, Andrew Leland Rogers, Sophie Gomez, Aldo Escalante Ochoa, Dario Yazbek Bernal
Producer: Jonathan Davis, Santiago de la Paz, Santiago Mohar Volkow, Juan Sarquis, Santiago Dosal Stieglitz
Cinematography: Adrian Cores
Editing: Didac Palou
Music: Diago Lozano
Sound: Javier Umpierrez
Art direction: Lucia Diez Marina
Costume design: Luba Ramirez
Production company: Laredo 17, Nomadas, Edge Films (Mexico)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In Spanish
111 minutes

Not only that, but there are – aside from a couple of brief glimpses of the outside world through flashbacks – only four walls. This is a black-and-white, locked-room mystery in which the protagonist’s only companions are a retro mobile phone and his own thoughts. Reminiscent in its conceit to something like Steven Knight’s Locke or Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried, this a film in which the narrative plays out through telephone conversations while its star remains on screen, trapped in a confined location. References to Hitchcock are bound to be made, but this is a film as much about psychological imprisonment as the sly mechanics of the puzzle. Receiving their world premiere at Oldenburg Film Festival, both the film and Edward Hogg’s central turn deserve further exposure.

The Lonely Musketeer begins with Rupert (Hogg), a super-rich financial trader, waking up suddenly in a concrete box with no windows and doors. There is a crack in the wall high above Rupert’s head, which is letting light in, but otherwise there is no sign of an opening in the walls around him. He’s fully dressed in a dark business suit and white shirt and has an old mobile phone in his pocket. He initially believes this to be a prank by his best mates, Philip (voiced by Chris Kyriacou) and Mickey (Richard Glover), who collectively refer to themselves as “The Three Musketeers”. Quickly, Rupert discovers that this is no prank, and a desperate investigation takes place via a series of phone calls to unravel the events that led to his abduction. Others peopling the dialogues with him include a police inspector that he went to school with (Jennifer K Preston), his estranged wife (Angela Peters) and his secretary (Kate Berry).

At one stage an unknown caller rings Rupert’s phone and he begins an ongoing conversation with his abductor who begins to ask him questions about his past, assuring him that if he answers fully and honestly, he will be released. Thus, the reason for Rupert’s incarceration begins to reveal itself and the central conceit of Schumann’s impeccably taut screenplay starts to come fully into focus. Locked in this room, Rupert is being forced to confront himself. Through the snatches of conversations with schoolmates and his wife, his callous nature becomes evident. As the story of his entrapment becomes public knowledge, he learns it is being characterised in the media as “Scrooge trapped in a box.” It’s a more on-the-nose nickname than they realise, given his current situation being confronted by the ghosts of his own past. At one point he asks his secretary how she would describe him and, struggling for a compliment, she – to his evident heartbreak – describes him as “hard-working,” “ambitious” and “accurate.”

The impact of all of this is up to Edward Hogg to sell and boy, does he sell it. This is a bravura turn from the British actor who runs the gamut from the entitled millionaire throwing his weight around, even when locked in a concrete box, to the dejected man who realises his wife and son are slipping from his grasp and his fate is, unusually, outside his own control. Hogg is exceptional throughout, but particularly in moments of high tension. In one sequence, his friend Mickey is going to meet someone for information and something bad starts happening on the other end of the line. Hogg is framed in extreme close-up, his face tight and twitching with the escalating tension. It’s all the thrill of an action sequence confined to a man’s increasingly terrified visage.

Schumann and his cinematographer, Bruce Jackson, do an exceptional job throughout of keeping the camerawork interesting despite not just being a single location, but one with few distinguishing characteristics. Often they will punch in on Rupert’s face while he is on the phone, to allow the performance to shine, the intimacy emphasised by the 4:3 aspect ration. They also seem to enjoy the challenge of finding new ways to present the room, using the shifting light from the opening to bisect the space and sometimes pulling the camera back to reveal the room within a pitch black void. Hogg’s face is lit for maximum emotional impact and as the film continues there is almost a silent film expressionism to way that the interplay of lighting and make-up contort Rupert’s haggard physiognomy. His face become hollower, his eyes darker, as the true nature of his personality is gradually unearthed amidst the suggestions of his involvement in a brutal crime as a teenager.

What is perhaps most satisfying about The Lonely Musketeer when compared to similar films of its type, is the assurance with which it balances its detective mystery element and its psychological portrait. Both of these are satisfying riddles to see teased out over the course of the film’s brisk 97-minute runtime and it would be easy to imagine watching Edward Hogg’s fabulous performance for even longer. It’s a thriller in the truest sense of the word – bold, innately cinematic storytelling with a genuine payoff.

 Director, screenplay: Nicolai Schumann
Cast: Edward Hogg, Richard Glover, Jennifer K Preston, Angela Peters
Producer: Addy Raja, Marc Scneider
Cinematography: Bruce Jackson
Editing: Top Tarasin
Music: Nilly Brook
Sound: John Mellor
Production design: Lillian Caccia
Production company: Addy Films, Alice’s Pig Productions (UK),  Apiro Entertainment, Right Film Productions (Germany)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
97 minutes

It is a film whose premise features two young children, the 11-year-old Renee (Leslie Vazquez) and her younger brother Vito (Emiliano Gallardo Valencia), left to fend for themselves when their father (Daniel Borbon) disappears into the desert to die. Left only a letter explaining that he wishes to be reunited with their mother and instructions to head to the city, the two youngsters must find their own way through an arid Mexican landscape.

From its opening moments, Diego Gaxiola infuses Nostalgia with a magical realism that sits as a counterpoint to the grimness of its scenario. While laying the children to sleep before his departure, their father tells them a fable about a man who bred peacocks and would bury their hearts in the ground so their souls might live forever. This story is presented in the form of a beautiful hand drawn animation by Theo Lenoble, a technique which recurs at several other moments when the harsh reality meets the veil with something beyond.

There are various moments of humour and grace as the two children attempt to make their own way across country: from their hilarious joy ride in their father’s car – with one operating the wheel and another the brakes – to a sunset swim in an isolated lagoon. If anything, these moments of childlike playfulness and wonder only serve to deepen the poignancy of their predicament. In one sequence, Renee tells Vito that he must leave everything behind and, having buried its woolen heart to save its soul, he shoots a cuddly toy from a pile of rocks. There are various boundaries the children must skirt or cross in this journey – whether that is growing up or crossing over – and watching them do so is a quietly moving experience.

Director, screenplay: Diego Gaxiola
Cast: Leslie Vazquez, Emiliano Gallardo Valencia, Daniel Borbon
Producers: Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Santiago Cervantes, Diego Gaxiola
Cinematography: Francisco Yanez
Editing: Natalia Gaxiola, Lena Fajardo
Music: Ignacio Ferrarazzo
Animation: Theo Lenoble
Production Design: Maria Jose Villalobos
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In Spanish
28 minutes

Read more of our short film coverage over at Verdict Shorts

A mystery with psychological horror elements embedded in it, this feels like what something like Riverdale ultimately aspires to be – a blend of trendy high-school drama with dark horror vibes. In this case, however, the interior wranglings of its protagonist add an additional layer of strangeness in a screenplay written by Peirone and Guinevere Turner (who co-wrote American Psycho) based on Don Roff’s novel, Clare at Sixteen. Peirone is playful with her tone, which veers from fantastic to the procedural with varying success but is anchored by a finely calibrated performance from Bella Thorne and is consistently very good fun.

The plot follows college student Clare Bleeker (Thorne) who, despite her tender years, has a skill for making men who abuse women disappear. Having been exposed a gruesome tragedy as a young girl, she has subsequently come to take violent action against such men, believing herself on a mission from God, and feeling a kinship with Joan of Arc. Having tried to subdue her impulses since moving in with grandmother, Gigi (Rebecca De Mornay), a chance encounter at a bus-stop with a guy claiming to be looking for directions, leads Clare to find herself being investigated by local detective Timmons (Ryan Philippe), and uncovering a long line of missing women in the area.

While this might be an exercise in the heightened genre fare, it is clear that Peirone has much that she wants the film to say, particularly about the ease with which systematic abuse of women can be ignored because it is unpleasant – or worse still, inconvenient – to talk about. Of course, the scenario in her film is exaggerated, but its underlying message is a pointed one. In the case of Clare – again, a hyperbolic vision of this – she places a protagonist who becomes the person attempting to speak out for and stand up for those without a voice. Clare’s anger might be channelled into her own conception of violent retribution, but its causes of righteous.

All of that is presented through the mindset of a young woman who genuinely believes she has been ordained for this task by a higher power. Although Peirone’s film has transplanted her to college and played down the religious nature of her school, the original story was effectively about a Catholic schoolgirl serial killer and those elements still remain. The most notable of these is in the form of mailman Bob (Frank Whaley) who Clare was unintentionally involved in the death of six months prior. He now comes to her at night, claiming to represent her conscience and offering advice about living a normal life and counsel to remind her that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Peirone and her cinematographer, Luke Bazeli, also revel in playing with the religious insinuations of the premise, constantly placing Thorn in the centre of the frame or lighting her in chiaroscuro to represent the internal conflict she feels.

Additionally, Thorne is regularly shot in extreme close-ups, lit spectacularly in a flood of colour or with the frame edges out of focus around her. It puts the audience very much in Clare’s position and tries to convey the sensations of her psychological state – the viewer is not just told that she has disassociated from what is happening around her but also feels that, creating the same tension and uncertainty in the audience as Clare feels.

If all of this sounds like a lot, it is. This is maximalist filmmaking that leans into its bold aesthetic and narrative choices and there are times that the tonal variations don’t quite mesh or, indeed, where they seem to take more of a backseat to allow the narrative to progress unencumbered. It can make Saint Clare feel uneven at times but it is usually held together by Thorne who is impressive in the lead. She manages to carry herself with a weirdness that – a glazing of the eye, awkward small talk, murderous intent – that mean even in a scene that feels strait-laced, she brings a little surrealism to it. It means that even in its less successful moments, the film remains utterly engaging and should prove a blast for lovers of genre fare while having something to say.

Director: Mitzi Peirone
Screenplay: Mitzi Peirone, Don Roff, Guinevere Turner
Cast: Bella Thorne, Rebecca De Mornay, Ryan Philippe, Frank Whaley
Producer: Arielle Elwes, Joel Michaely, Thor Bradwell
Cinematography: Luke Bazeli
Editing: Patrick Sanchez Smith
Music: Zola Jesus, Philip Klein
Production Design: James Wise
Art Direction: Katie Blackburn
Costume: Lisa Norcia
Production companies: Elevated Films, Balcony 9 Productions, Dead Rabbit Films, Lucky 13 Productions, Screen Media (USA)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
93 minutes

Maurice O’Carroll’s exhilarating film of the same name charts the behind-the-scenes intrigues of a big fight night as four female boxers pace anxiously in the changing rooms waiting for a potential opportunity to fight. It’s propulsive ensemble drama with various crime elements ducking and weaving in and out of the match preparations while the people in and out of the ring prepare for nights that might well change their lives. Swing Bout originally screened at Dublin International Film Festival and, ahead of its theatrical release in Ireland later this month, it received its international premiere at Oldenburg Film Festival.

The story follows a whole range of people involved in swing bouts but its protagonist is ‘Terrible’ Toni (Ciara Berkley), a British fighter whose past as a thief has given her a bad reputation. She’s aiming to turn things around with her trainer, Emma (Sinead O’Riordan), in a bout with the hot young prospect making her pro-debut ,‘Vicious’ Vicki (Chrissie Cronin). Their fight is one that has the interest of the Casey brothers, Micko (Frank Prendergast) and Jack (Ben Condron) who want Toni to take a dive in the second round to give Vicki a winning start. There are €10,000 on the line if she does, but Toni’s currently unbeaten record would be ruined. Elsewhere a couple of other fighters keep squaring up in the changing rooms, Jack is on a constant quest for a top-up of cocaine and Micko is expecting an ominous visit from the Garde.

If all of that sounds like a lot is going on, that’s just the half of it. Swing Bout’s screenplay – written by O’Carroll – is packed full of minor narratives, and minute aggressions and the fact that everything is so well balanced and paced is to his absolute credit. There are perhaps a dozen storylines interweaving here but they never feel confusing and, more impressively, none of them feel underserved – from a very serious situation involving an abducted local man that police suspect Micko of having orchestrated or the moral quandary facing Toni about her prospects, to Emma and her husband’s financial difficulties or another boxer, Flann (Baz Black) who hasn’t fought in 18 months and has been consigned to YouTube commentary, much to his chagrin.

The deft handling of these storylines is one thing, but what is also so impressive about the film is how the characters feel equally well-served. As a very low-budget production, there was barely time to rehearse but the whole cast, regardless of role size, evidently poured a lot into their characters and it comes across throughout. O’Carroll’s script allows almost every individual, even those who seem to be aggressive coke-addicts or amoral criminals, a moment of empathy. Swing Bout cares about all of its characters, even those who do deplorable things, and allows its audience to as well. Whether that is Toni’s consternation at being asked to throw a fight when she knows she’s good enough to win it, her bubbling anger aided by a recurring motivation by gravel-voiced guru (voiced by John Connors) that she listens to in her noise cancelling headphones. His line that opens the film – “The one who looks outside dreams, the one who looks inside wakes… so wakey, wakey motherfucker!” – gives a good sense of his, and the film’s, tone. A fantastic scene shows the bolshy show-off Vicki confiding her apprehension about her first fight to her alcoholic father, Bomber (Johnny Elliot) who, unexpectedly, steps up with some profound life advice. While Micko, the callous mastermind of various underhand endeavours is constantly on the brink of tears after being left that afternoon by his wife.

All of this is brought together by some impeccable filmmaking that utilises its low budget to its fullest potential. The action is confined to the backrooms and changing facilities of the area, never venturing out into the ring itself, but dynamic camerawork from Mark O’Rourke and a clever audio-conceit of pumping the commentary from the bouts into the soundscape brings allows for the action to feel ever-present. This might be a boxing movie that features precious little on-screen boxing, but there a still scenes that evoke the brutal back-and-forth of the ring both visually and sonically. Swing Bout is less about the brawl itself and more the blows that are landed around the edges of ring – about what it means to master your fear, to stake your claim, to forge your own path. It’s a knockout.

Director, screenplay, editing: Maurice O’Carroll
Cast: Ciara Berkeley, Sinead O’Riordan, Ben Condron, Frank Prendergast, Chrissie Cronin
Producer: Sinead O’Riordan
Cinematography: Mark O’Rourke
Production design: Darren O’Mahony
Sound: Robert O’Halloran, Danilo Zambrano
Production company: ORion Productions
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
90 minutes

Indeed, the credits refer to it by version number, suggesting that this is work under constant construction and ends with a promise that it will be continued. This creates a base of shifting sand on which the film is built; it is theoretically morphing all the time, with the potential to be different each time you see it. It is a curious proposition for what is ostensibly an epistolary essay film, imagining a conversation between the modernist poet Fernando Pessoa (d. 1935) and the science fiction horror writer H.P. Lovecraft (d. 1937). However, this perhaps gives an indicator to the nature of Pera’s film, which uses their preserved words to forge new AI-facilitated dialogues between the two men’s psyches.

Arguably, these are two authors who have a kinship with the strange visual deviations that are innate in the process of making imagery with artificial intelligence. Where text prompts will make a variety of similar but surreally different images of the same thing, one can see a clear parallel to the heteronyms and pseudonyms employed by the two authors. Pera regularly fills the screen with a matrix of images, digressions on Pessoa and Lovecraft’s portraits, each one speaking as if different people. Indeed, by casting Keith Esher Davis as the voice both of the writers, Pessoa in a way recreates as if they are facets of one shapeshifting entity.

Pera revels in finding and forming these connections between the two men, between their outlooks, and between their words. At one point, Pessoa asserts that ‘our poems invent the universe, they do not reproduce it.’ Pera seems to hold a similar viewpoint, and enjoys his position as the playful creator, dreaming of various mash-ups of the writers’ works – he veers seamlessly between Lovecraft’s evocations of The Old Ones (the famous gods of his Cthulhu mythos) and the reflections in Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. This is helped by passages in which the authors almost parrot one another. In one moment Pera is able to cut from Lovecraft telling Pessoa that he lives ‘in terror of not being misunderstood,’ to Pessoa responding: ‘I have always avoided being understood – to be understood is to prostitute oneself.’

These intentional opacity in their work again allows a great deal of licence to Pera in his creation of fantastic visuals to accompany these literary musings, and it is perhaps the visuals that will linger longest in the memories of enamoured audiences. As previously mentioned, Pera regularly chooses to present alternative versions of the same image tiled across the screen, drawing our attention to the odd variances between the AI generations, but also between the versions of the men. In other instances, short clips of the same thing follow one another, like time is slipping and being re-played, but each time slightly differently. At other points still, the images themselves mutate into one another, producing startling visions. It is a fascinating way to evoke the haunted and haunting nature of the words.

The use of AI is also likely to be the element of the film that garners it the most conversation. Pera has long incorporated cutting-edge technology into his filmmaking practice and, as an early adopter, the significant use of generative AI for Telepathic Letters feels like a natural progression. However, what is important here is how stylistically fitting  the imagery feels. Pera has found common ground not just between his two favourite authors, but also between them and the complexion of such digitally generated art. This is not the use of AI for its own sake, but its deployment in crafting a specific, uncanny and unforgettable visual language through which to present this phantasmagorical tete-a-tete from beyond the grave.

 Director, screenplay, editing: Edgar Pera
Cast: Keith Esher Davis, Barbara Lagido, Iris Cayatte, Victoria Guerra
Producer: Rodrigo Areias
Music: Artur Cyaneto
Sound: Pedro Gois
Production company: Bando a Parte
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
69 minutes

As soon as the title is revealed to be the name of a dog, happily out on a walk with Hannah (Betsey Brown) and John (Morgan Krantz), a foreboding sets in. A bit like Chekov’s Gun, the fate of Bits feels sealed. For this is a film in which a serial killer inhabits a small Montana town, and in which local women have gone missing. But Lilliya Scarlett Reid’s take on this subject matter follows one potential victim and the way her world is warped both by her local society and the killer in their midst.

Hannah’s date with John doesn’t go very well and she is frustrated by his rejection. One night she sees him throw something into the local dump and finds the body of the beloved dog, which she promptly buries herself. Rather than being horrified, she uses this act of kindness as a reason to speak to him again. Even when her friend reveals that John has been found to have killed multiple women, Hannah brushes it off.

Far from just being a film about a woman becoming enamoured of a dangerous man, or of a darkness, Reid combines such tropes with the limited prospects of a young woman in small town America. Here, Hannah’s options are reduced, the scope of her life restricted by her environment to such a degree that even the horror of being selected by a serial killer becomes some way to break through, to go beyond her current situation. In a stultifying world, even the worst atrocity becomes a form of release.

Anchored on an intricate and subtle performance by Betsey Brown as the difficult-to-pin-down Hannah, Bits is a murky and engrossing little drama.

Director, screenplay: Lilliya Scarlett Reid
Cast: Betsey Brown, Morgan Krantz, “One Take” Spike, Jon Gries
Producer: Julian Paul Stein
Cinematography: Nico Van Den Berg
Editing: Santiago Candejas
Production design: Fiona Story
Sound: Alonso Esquinca
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
22 minutes

Read more of our short film coverage over at Verdict Shorts

Receiving its world premiere as the opening night film of the 2024 Oldenburg Film Festival, Frerichs’ film was presented with all of its stars taking to the stage and the director describing a five-year process to bring the story to the screen. Of course, Frerichs is not the first person to do so, with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut the most famous adaptation but there also being Austrian, Australian and Italian versions of the story over the past sixty years. In Frerichs’ script, written with Martina van Delay, the action is transported from Vienna in 1900 to a modern Berlin. Adopting a suitably arch tone, Traumnovelle seeks to blend phantasmal sexual desire with dreamlike philosophising with varying degrees of success.

The narrative hews fairly closely to the source material, and opens with a doctor, Jakob (Nikolai Kinski) and his wife, Amelia (Laurin Price) putting their child to bed. Their home is moneyed, and they discuss a forthcoming trip to see Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera at the opera – a story in which a man named Jakob is driven to regicide by the perceived infidelity of his wife Amelia. Then they discuss the previous night at a club, where both of them were tempted by sexual encounters with other, masked people, and Amelia confesses a long-term fantasy about a Danish naval officer they encountered on a past holiday. This sends Jakob out into the night, stewing with resentment at his wife’s illusory betrayal and sending him into a string of strange, sexualised encounters – primarily his uninvited entry into a private orgy, wearing a cloak and mask to hide his identity.

In Schnitzler’s novel the absolute absurdity of the narrative, and the presentation of the bourgeois couple at its centre, are intended to be somewhat mocking. The extent of the male fantasy that Fridolin (the Jakob character) acts out is ludicrous enough to be lampooning and the bizarre nature of some of the scenarios he finds himself in are less far-fetched and more farcical. Frerichs’ version is perhaps more successful at conveying this sense to its audience than Kubrick’s was. Eyes Wide Shut has all the same elements and treats them in a similarly mannered way, but which were perhaps more difficult for audiences to parse in the moment. Frerichs is well aware of the silliness and his cast are capable of balancing playing their characters completely straight, while lacing every line of dialogue and every bit of blocking with charged suggestion.

Frerichs makes overt the unreality of some of the situations, depicting a moment in which Jakob expertly fights off a group of thugs in an alley, before pulling the action back to reveal this to be in the doctor’s mind. We’re left to wonder what else we’re seeing in playing out in the same psychological stage rather than in the real world. The entire premise of the film is based on Jakob taking Amelia’s fantasies as genuine unfaithfulness. “It’s only desire, it’s not real,” she tries to explain to him, but he evidently cannot distinguish. And so, the portent of the dialogue, the laden sensual atmosphere of the scenes is called into question. Even Jakob’s secretary, when coming into his office to check on his schedule, stands too close, and gives him too lingering of a look.

Of course, this ripeness will not be to everyone’s tastes – in the same way the stilted nature of Eyes Wide Shut divided audiences. Even if you are able to tune into Traumnovelle’s wavelength, the tone can still sometimes feel at odds with the narrative and the themes. A subplot with the costume shop owner from whom he rents his mask, which surrounds his son’s depravity and mental health, doesn’t quite land, and there are other moments of a similarly hokey nature. Fortunately, the overall trancelike ambiance can help these things to fall by the wayside if necessary.

In the original novel, the password the protagonist had to give to enter the orgy was ‘Denmark,’ evidently a reference to his wife’s fantasy sailor. In Kubrick’s film the word is ‘Fidelio,’ referencing the Beethoven opera about a faithful wife seeking to save her imprisoned husband. In Frerichs and van Delay’s version, the word is ‘Verdi’ in reference to Un Ballo in Maschera, perhaps hinting at their core interest in telling this story. Verdi’s opera is about a man consumed by the perceived adultery of his wife, and it is clear to see the parallels. Whether the viewer can get on board with the pitch of Traumnovelle will ultimately define how much they can invest such meaning into its theatricality, but there is much here to enjoy regardless.

Director, editing: Florian Frerichs
Screenplay: Florian Frerichs, Martina van Delay
Cast: Nikolai Kinski, Laurine Prince, Nora Islei, Nike Martens, Bruno Eyron
Producers: Christoph Fisser, Florian Frerichs
Cinematography: Konstantin Freyer
Music: Tuomas Kentelinen
Sound: Darius Shahidifar
Production design: Tanja Bombach, Itamar Zechoval
Costume design: Itamar Zechoval
Production companies: Studio Babelsberg, Warnuts Entertainment, Gretchenfilm, Thomas Kretschmer THK Filmproduktion (all Germany)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English, German
108 minutes

The coming of a blood moon eclipse on the 6^th of June – 06/06/96 – has prompted people to forecast the coming of the devil and the populace has been whipped up as a result. Against the backdrop of this existing social tumult, Camila Beltran’s strange and sumptuous film presents the maelstrom inside 13-year-old Mila (Stella Martinez) who is taking the first steps into womanhood and finds the changes in her body entangling with prophecies of the end times. After its world premiere at Acid Cannes earlier this year, Mi Bestia now travels to Oldenburg Film Festival.

The entwinement of a female coming-of-age and the birth of emergence of something terrible is hardly a new phenomenon. Monstrous femininity is a familiar trope that has been used in horror films in particular for years. Beltran’s film adopts it in quite a similar way to something like Amanda Nell Eu’s Tiger Stripes, though to different ends. In Eu’s film, the protagonist’s bestial transformation went hand-in-hand with a striving for agency. In Beltran’s, while the same could be said, it is much more interested in its monstrosity as a reaction against a certain type of male gaze – and overfamiliarity – that come with Mila’s onsetting adolescence.

Beltran and her cinematographer, Sylvain Verdet, do a fantastic job of placing the audience very much within Mila’s perspective. There are lots of extreme close-ups and strangely cropped compositions that mimic her attention and what comes across as a heightened sense of physical awareness. Mila is largely silent, and it is the embodiment of her focus in the cinematography that guide us to what is happening for her internally. They also use a striking technique in which frame rates are slowed creating a woozy effect. It is not used all the time, but it centres the nature of certain sequences within Mila’s body. This makes it all the more affecting when, for instance, her mother’s boyfriend, David (Hector Sanchez), stares at her legs for a split-second too long, or men on the street crane their necks to watch her walk by.

It’s not that Mila is unreceptive to tall looks, as we see her share furtive glances with her crush, Miguel Angel (Felipe Ramirez). However, it is arguably the onset of her own burgeoning sexuality that makes her aware of it in others. News stories hint at a predator making young girls disappear in the city and Mila’s understanding of both consensual sex and sexual violence is developed far closer to home. Combined with her mother’s (Marcela Mar) absence through a busy work life and closeness to and influence of their maid, Dora (Mallely Aleyda Murillo Rivas), Mila’s transformation becomes far more than just one into womanhood.

The exact nature of Mila’s transformation remains ambiguous for most of the runtime and the dreamlike visuals of certain sequences heighten the blurring of lines between reality and fantasy. Are the threats that Mila suspects actually genuine? Are the more overtly outlandish physical changes she hides away actually happening? Are the disappearing girls related in any way to the coming of the archfiend? It’s true that there are certain moments in which a little more clarity about what is supposed to be happening might make Mi Bestia all the more powerful. The suggestions and strangeness work well, but something a little more concrete might crystalise some of the themes more acutely.

That said, the confusion and fear of a young woman getting her first period are brilliantly conveyed here through the uncertainty of the surrounding atmosphere. Although Beltran is not for the most part interested in making things explicit – although the final leans more literally into the fantastical element – it could be argued this elevates rather than diminishes the potency of this mesmerising, unnerving portrait.

Director: Camila Beltran
Screenplay: Camila Beltran, Silvina Schnicer
Cast: Stella Martinez, Mallerly Murillo, Marcela Mar, Hector Sanchez
Cinematography: Sylvain Verdet
Editing: Jeanne Oberson
Sound: Edgar Imbault, Damien Tronchot
Music: Wissam Hojeij
Production company: Felina Films (Colombia), Grand Huit Films (France)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In Spanish
75 minutes

The first feature film by a female director from Bahrain, it is play on the ancient Greek story – involving false identities, recrimination, and revenge – but by way of an immaculate Italian drama inflected with array of cinematic and literary influences while also feeling undeniably contemporary.

The narrative begins in Rome, with a meeting between music star Milo (Jack Farthing) and a journalist from a magazine, Dylan (Daryl Wein) who is going to do a profile on him. Both of their respective partners are also introduced – Lucy (Abigail Cowen) who is along with Dylan to take photographs for the article, and Francesca (Maria Bakalova), Milo’s performance artist girlfriend. Quickly, Milo invites the couple for a weekend in Maria’s opulent family home in the countryside, unaware that Dylan and Lucy are not who they claim to be. The setup has evident shades of The Talented Mr. Ripley, while the milieu of the faded manor evokes the mid-century cinema of Italian masters.

One might think, from that premise, that what follows is stifling but little could be further from the truth. While Electra revels in its slowly cranking claustrophobia, it rarely feels oppressive as much as compulsive. The foursome revolves around each other, playing various psychological and literal games, and the lines of sexual tension flit from one pairing to another with abandon. The modernity of the characters is ever present despite the retro-stylings of the lavish palazzo that they rattle around and Matar’s intention feels equal parts homage and reinvention, the décor feels old and grand while their dress senses and references are all impeccably on trend.

Trendiness is integral to all the characters in different ways, and the film both sends up and lays bare the realities of being hip wealthy art school kids struggling for emotional reassurance or searching for meaning. Milo evidently has a chip on his shoulder about his music being for kids and wills himself into believing Dylan’s increasingly faltering pitch because he needs it to be true. Dylan himself is presenting as a journalist from Dazed, someone who’s supposed to have his finger on the pulse, but his real motives hark back to the plays by Sophocles and Euripides. Francesca is a performance artist who is scared to truly perform. Lucy is an aspiring actress who has taken the gig of conning the others as a means to an end, some financial security to follow her dream. There are moments of pontification about art and philosophy the are rolled together with jittery dialogues in which people person fallacies will come to light.

There are various instances in which the filmmaking itself encroaches into the verisimilitude and these are perhaps some of the Electra‘s more interesting and inspired moments. One sees a badminton match between Milo and Dylan out in the courtyard where the action is slowed down and some archival audio of a match between an English and American competitor blares. The various interplaying tension of the scene, and how they are inhabited by the form, are all arguably what Luca Guadanigno couldn’t quite pull off in the climactic face-off of his recent tennis thriller, Challengers. Elsewhere Matar adds computer game inserts, crosses intertitles out on the screen, interrupts the action with a surreal mime performance at the dinner table, and accompanies scenes with tracks of Milo’s, their provenance listed in the bottom corner.

There are times when all of these struggles to mesh together, and there were certainly moments in the film where things began to feel somewhat listless. Typically, they are followed by a strange or entrancing sequence that pulls things back. The performances are all very good from the four leads, particularly Farthing and Bakalova. The film could easily have been a case of style being prioritised over substance, and it’s possible some will level that claim, but all four actors are perfectly cast to imbue characters that can feel slight at times with a level of pathos that keeps things grounded.

The film’s ending is likely to be one that will divide people. It is abrupt and feels like a sudden change of register but, in fact, is more the breaking of a spell, the return to something far more tawdry and real. Electra takes on a surreal escapade and when we’re brought back down to earth it is with a significant, and arguably perfectly calibrated, bump.

Director: Hala Matar
Screenplay: Hala Matar, Paul Sado, Daryl Wein
Cast: Maria Bakalova, Jack Farthing, Abigail Cowen, Daryl Wein
Producers: Hala Matar, Daryl Wein, Jordan Beckerman, Jordan Yale Levine, Tommaso Bertani, Luca Cottafavi
Cinematography: Michael Alden Lloyd
Editing: Matt Berardi, Spencer Rollins
Production design: Alessandro Cicoria
Costume design: Hind Matar
Music: Ali Helnwein
Production company: Ring Film  (Italy), Daryl Wein Films, Vested Interest, Yale Productions (all USA)
World Sales: Great Escape
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In English
85 minutes

Filmmaker Leo Behrens, a cinematographer by trade, wanted to find a way to genuinely evoke the internal journey of his own gender transition. By literalising the metaphorical saying about feeling comfortable in one’s own skin, the film creates a strange and symbolic tableau that at once feels utterly unreal and deeply authentic. Winner of several awards including the gold medal at the 2023 Student Academy Awards, Skin now screens in the short film section at the Oldenburg Film Festival.

The film effectively reimagines the famous scene from The Matrix in which Neo touches the mirror and reality bends as he conceives of its constructed nature. Here, the mirror also bends and contorts as an indicator of a version of reality being challenged, but not be the person looking into it. Instead, Behrens’ film creates two worlds separated by this phantasmagorical pane of glass, one in which a young woman gazes at the mirror and one in which their true self, their male self, waits in a wintery chamber to be recognised, to be actualised.

Behrens’ background in cinematography means that it is hardly a surprise that Skin is gorgeous to look at. Here, the now familiar blue and orange lighting of modern cinema are emblematically split – between a grungy bedroom and a frosty prison, between the outer female self and male self within. Eschewing dialogue, the film represents the silent interior reckoning of its protagonist. However, what makes Skin so striking is the ease with which it carries such an emotional punch. Behrens is less interested in the anguish of the person who feel constricted by their body and instead explores the catharsis of self-acceptance. It’s beauty is not just in its visuals but the poignancy of the experience it gives us a glimpse into.

Director, screenplay, cinematography: Leo Behrens
Cast: Lio Mehiel
Producer: Ilayda Cetinkaya
Editing: Alejandra Armijo
Production design: Mojo Wen
Music: Mike Forst
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
No dialogue
7 minutes

Read more of our short film coverage over at Verdict Shorts

For more than three decades, the small city in Lower Saxony has played host to the dynamic festival that aims to give indie films that same sort of platform as Sundance. Across the course of five days, the people of Oldenburg and the festival’s array of international guests will have the opportunity to celebrate a variety of bold and innovative filmmaking.

The festival will open on the evening of Wednesday 11 September with the world premiere of Florian Frerichs’ Traumnovelle which adapts Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella of the same name. At least the third adaptation of Schnitzler’s work – after the 1969 German TV movie by Wolfgang Gluck and Stanley Kubrick’s significantly more high-profile Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – this one purportedly hews closer the original source material. Repressed longings come to the fore when a man discovers his wife has been fantasising about someone else, sending him on a erotic voyage into the Berlin night. The opening screening has already proved popular enough that the Cinemaxx venue where it is being held have extended the performance to a second auditorium.

And audiences will have a lot more enjoy after that. Over the following four days more than 50 films, a combination of feature-length and shorts, will screen in venues around the historic old town and beyond. 18 different countries are represented in the programme which, as you would expect, boasts a strong German contingent. Alexander Dierbach’s Born Bad (Bose Gerboran) follows two detectives as they try to unravel the case of a murdered animal rights activist, killed by an unknown sniper deep in the forest. At the End of Truth, directed by Saralisa Volm, explores the impact of domestic violence on a successful surgeon. One of the festival’s gala screenings, the city’s state theatre will be lit up by Jerome Vandewattyne’s One-Way Ticket to the Other Side, which promises to immersive audiences in a spectacular moving image and live music event.

Alongside the offerings from Germany are films from across the globe, from Japan (A Wasted Night) to Columbia (Mi Bestia), from the UAE (Three) to Italy (Tineret). Sticking with Oldenburg’s ethos of championing indie cinema and forging its own path, this is not a line-up consisting solely of films from Cannes and Venice, but one in which audiences can genuinely make new discoveries. In addition, the festival welcomes two artists in exile from Myanmar to present work in their ‘Tribute’ strand, celebrating the films of Na Gyi and Paing Phyoe Thu. The section will screen two of Na Gyi’s features – 2019’s Mi and 2021’s What Happened to the Wolf? – as well as three shorts; Guilt, Our Turn and My Lost Nation.

In a similar vein, Oldenburg’s Retrospective strand celebrates the work of a single filmmaker, this time that of Dominik Graf. Renowned as a premiere purveyor of genre cinema for German audiences, and admired for the way his body of work surveys contemporary German society, this is a much needed focus that includes screenings of his films such as Die Katze (1988), Hotte Im Paradies (2002) and Fabian und Der Gang vor die Hunde (2021) amongst others, as well as a masterclass hosted by critic Rudiger Suchsland.

Beyond the physical streets of Oldenburg, this year’s edition will also continue the festival’s journey into the Metaverse. For its 30^th anniversary last year, Oldenburg teamed up with MILC to craft a digital version of the old town where people could watch trailers or screen selected films from the festival’s streaming service The Platform, and this is set to continue in 2024. The move provides ever more ways for audiences to be wowed by the Oldenburg programme once again.

Read more of our coverage of the 2024 Oldenburg Film Festival