Members

The Hamburg-based collective A Wall is a Screen has been presenting short films in public spaces for over 20 years. Since its first screening in 2003, the group has received invitations from some of the world’s most renowned short film festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand and Tampere. To date, A Wall is a Screen has curated more than 350 programs and toured in over 30 countries — including India, Japan, Thailand, Canada, and numerous European cities.

A Wall is a Screen transforms facades and other urban structures into projection surfaces, creating an original, thought-provoking, and always entertaining perspective on the city. Seemingly familiar places are literally seen in a new light, as each film enters into a dialogue with its surroundings — and vice versa. The audience follows the projection team from wall to wall, and from film to film, becoming protagonists in the experience themselves. Only the starting point is announced in advance; the films and locations remain a surprise.

The project presents a unique blend of city tour and site-specific short film program. At its core, A Wall is a Screen was founded as an artistic and activist response to the increasing commercialization and privatization of urban public spaces — free of charge, non-commercial, and open to all.

Over the past two decades, the project has evolved from political street art into carefully curated, site-specific film screenings on a wide range of themes — including historical city walks. It also offers a variety of side activities such as workshops and special programs for children and families. The original format has even expanded to include tours by bicycle or boat.

The Chemnitzer Filmwerkstatt was founded on 04.07.1991 as a non-profit association. The aim of the association is to create a regional contact point for young filmmakers and thus to promote and discover young talents, giving them a first opportunity to realize their cinematic ideas and initiatives.

The Chemnitzer Filmwerkstatt is an innovative platform that is also open to unconventional experiments and thus creates the basis for the development of a young and creative film culture. This is done in close cooperation with other filmmakers, associations and companies. Above all, the initiative and creativity of new talents in all areas of film production are to be promoted. The Chemnitzer Filmwerkstatt has been developing, producing and distributing projects by young local filmmakers for years. Numerous festival participations and awards (including the Teddy Jury Award of the Berlinale 2001 for "Forbidden Fruit" by Sue Maluwa-Bruce and Beate Kunath and the German Short Film Award 2013 for "short film" by Olaf Held) speak for themselves.

Making films independently, creating alternatives, emancipating oneself from quota pressure and the lowest artistic denominator - that is and remains a real challenge, especially if you still want to work at a high level. Our current productions are intended to keep this development alive and to advance it, and at the same time to be a role model and encouragement for others. We invest our lifetime, our productivity and our passion in this goal.

Since its foundation in 1991, the Haus für Poesie has been promoting and supporting all areas of literature, but especially poetry, both as the written word and in conjunction with other art forms and media. Its work has focused exclusively on poetry since 2000. It is the venue where contemporary poetry in all its diversity of forms is showcased and discussed.

One of the main concerns of the Haus für Poesie is to nurture and encourage the next generation of writers and to get children and young people excited about poetry.

The Haus für Poesie has built up formats and structures which are unique for the art of poetry in Germany and in some cases unique in the world.

• With the web portal www.lyrikline.org, which has been awarded the Grimme Online Prize, Haus für Poesie runs the world’s biggest online portal for contemporary poetry. The platform is made possible by a network of partner institutions in more than 50 countries.
• The open mike competition for young, German-speaking writers of prose and poetry has been in existence since 1993 and takes place in Berlin. It is the best-known competition for new talent in the German-language area.
• New poetic talent is nurtured in the open poems poetry workshop.
• The poesiefestival berlin is the largest of its kind in Europe and year by year brings some 150 well-known poets and artists to Berlin from all over the world to be part of the 10-day international celebration and discussion of poetry.
• The VERSschmuggel / reVERSible translation workshops in which pairs of poets from two different languages translate each other ensure that German poetry gets the very best translations and poetry from other languages is translated into German.
• The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival brings together poetry films from around the world and is the only festival of its kind internationally.

The in-house programme of events of the Haus für Poesie in its event room in the Culture Brewery provides continuity throughout the year for the ongoing interaction with poetry with book launches, discussions and poetry from around the world.

The foundation SK Stiftung Kultur was founded in 1976 by Sparkasse KölnBonn on the occasion of the bank’s 150-year anniversary celebrations. The organisation today pursues its operative goals by offering an extensive programme relating to the subjects of photography, dance, the Kölsch (Cologne) dialect, cultural education and communication to the general public and industry experts. One focus lies on the promotion of literature and reading skills as well as on communication and education in the areas of film and media art.

In regard to film education it concentrates on the multi-facetted short film with the genres documentary, animation, narrative, experimental film, video art, advertising clip and music video.

The SK Stiftung Kultur regularly curates and organises genre and cross-genre short film programs on a current topic, such as the meeting of the generations, the own and the foreign or the topic of living.

It combines different genres in order to convey a broad spectrum of artistic and critical examination of each subject, to raise questions, to encourage discussion and to open the mind.