Kurzfilmfestival Kufstein 2023 - Who Am I? ...When all the masks are stripped off
ABOUT THE KURZFILMFESTIVAL KUFSTEIN
Since its successful premiere in 2018, the Kurzfilmfestival Kufstein (Short Film Festival Kufstein) offers a must-attend event in and around the region of Tirol. Being conceptualized under a different topic each year, the festival reflects the great creativity, curiosity, aspirations, and internationality of its constantly evolving teams. In the last years, short films under the topics of “At the edge of a plate – settling in or breaking out” (2018), “Loss and found – of loss and the desire for the new” (2019), “A New Beginning” (2020), "Nature is our playground" (2021) and “Ordinary Heroes” (2022) were presented.
Depending on the length of each short film, the evening program will consist of 8 to 10 films being shown to the audience.
THIS YEAR'S TOPIC
In such a dynamic, rapidly changing world as ours, we live through fugacious trends, new environments, uncertain times and crises, all whilst being confronted with the stance of our value depending on performance and hence growing expectations of withstanding and adapting to these changes quickly. This makes the question of who we are and what we want increasingly difficult to answer. Who am I, really? Am I the sum of my experiences, the product of my beliefs and values, or something more ephemeral and difficult to define? We believe that everyone at least once in life asks themself these questions, whilst simultaneously changing or developing character, as if choosing and wearing different disguises.
We live in societies where we often feel forced to wear different masks or showcase specific versions of ourselves, out of pressure, to fit in or simply because we don’t know who we really are yet. In our modern digital world with social media, it’s easy to wear and change different masks, people forget how to be real in an unreal world, creating unrealistic expectations and images of people's lives. Other times societies can be so cruel and unwelcoming that we feel the need to hide our true self behind a mask, not showing who we really are. This game in hide and seek creates social pressure, leads us to criticise and question ourselves and can make us soulless and unsatisfied individuals. We are so used to living with these different masks, that we don’t understand who we really are and don’t know where the unreal life ends, and where the real life starts.
It’s time to break this vicious circle.
This year, the Kurzfilmfestival Kufstein is exploring the cinematic visions of the concept of “Who am I?”. The program addresses questions such as: What kind of masks do we wear? Why are we not able to show ourselves without the masks? Are we creating societies full of illusions? Through this program we want to tackle the topics of diversity, social media and social pressure as well as identity, and how these define our thoughts and who we are.
We want to inspire our audience to question what kind of masks they wear in what situations and why. Our festival seeks to remind that we are all unique, that our identities are complex and multifaceted, and that we are all on a journey of self-discovery and self-identification. We want to show that the beauty of humans lies in diversity, and we want to encourage people to show themselves without their mask and accept everyone for who they really are, with their own beliefs, values and experiences.
In order to achieve this, we as a society have to ask ourselves: So who am I really when all the masks are stripped off?
JURY AWARD
An appointed jury of experts will review all selected short films and decide on the one winning the Jury Award (350 euros).
AUDIENCE AWARD
The audience will decide on which short film they liked the best. A film with the most votes from the audience will win the Audience Award (250 euros).
Please note that all selected films are competing for these two prizes.
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Daniel Maurer
December 2023 -
Lucas Ratton
November 2021 -
November 2021
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November 2021
