The Best Short Film of All Time

Can art change the world? At least that is the claim that is readily made about works of art in the cultural sphere. In Heinrich von Kleist's story "St. Cecilia, or the Power of Music", it is a stirring oratorio that saves a nunnery from its destruction. Would such a work of art have any place at all in our stimulus-flooded, bureaucratised world? Our film gets to the bottom of this question, in which the jury of a fictitious film festival comes out of a short film programme completely overwhelmed and no longer able to speak - let alone do their duty and choose a winning film. For festival director Evelyn Bichlinger, who rushes from one press appointment to the next, a small odyssey begins when, pressed for time, she has to elicit from the jury which of the 26 short films they have seen will receive an award. Despite the biting humour of our story, our main character believes deep in her heart in a cinema that breaks boundaries and has a strong impact on contemporary discourses. In the course of the story, she becomes all the more painfully aware that a sincerely moving work of art is rather a thorn in the side of our market(ing)- and performance-driven world. In the end, Evelyn cancels her appointments to devote herself to what film festivals are actually for: watching films. Can our short film change the world? We remain optimistic.