European Short Film Bouquet

ARTos Foundation in collaboration with the Goethe Institut, the Institut Francais, the Embassy of Austria and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are organizing a screening event of selected European short films. The screening programme consists of eight films of German, French, Austrian and Dutch filmmakers, with animation, fiction, documentary as well as experimental films with various thematic and aesthetic approaches.

English subtitles
Total duration: 95’

The following films will be screened:

Edmond was a donkey
France | 15’04”
Direction, screenplay, editing, special effects: Franck Dion
Production: Richard Van Den Boom
Sound: Pierre-Yves Drapeau, Serge Boivin
Music: Pierre Caillet

Edmond is not like everybody else. A small, quiet man, Edmond has a wife who loves him and a job that he does extraordinarily well. He is, however, very aware that he is different. When his coworkers tease him by crowning him with a pair of donkey ears, he suddenly discovers his true nature. And though he comes to enjoy his new identity, an ever-widening chasm opens op between himself and others. Edmond just doesn’t fit in: he’s a donkey in a world of horses. Since he can’t bring himself to be what others expect, Edmond makes the only possible choice.

Oh Willy
France | 16’ 54”
Direction, screenplay, editing: Emma De Swaef, Marc James Roels
Production: Nidia Santiago, Ben Tesseur
Cinematography: Marc James Roels
Sound: Bram Meindersma, Jeroen Nadorp
Art direction: Jean-Marc Ogier
Special effects: James Vanderhaeghen
Music: Bram Meindersma

When his mother dies, Willy goes back to the naturist community he grew up in. Overwhelmed by the memories this return brings back, he decides to flee into the wild, where he finds the motherly protection of a big hairy creature.

Confessions with an open curtain
Germany | 5’ 30”
Director, screenwriter, editor, producer: Eli Cortinas

Funny business, a woman’s career. The things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you will need them again when you get back to being a woman.

Memory extended
Germany | 12’04”
Director, screenwriter, editor: Yara Spaett
Directors of photography: Yara Spaett, Rita Macedo, Lena Siebertz

Memory extended is about my long-term research on my family history which takes place in Munich and Thessaloniki. The non-linear narrative constitutes itself on a double screen.

Sixth sense, third eye, second sight
Germany | 15’
Director, screenwriter, editor: Jan Riesenbeck
Directors of photography: Ben Brix, Jan Riesenbeck
Music: Max Hundelshausen
Sound design: Tobias Boehm
Cast: Ruben Zumstrull, Anna Fischer, Johann Adam Oest and more than 200 extras
Producer: Roland Fischer

A young man is seeing through other people’s eyes, struggling to find his own perspective. Ventriloquists mistake themselves for their doll. Sleep is preserved inside an hour glass as a mirror of one’s own dreams. Sometimes all the pieces fit together, but the picture makes no sense at all.

366 Tage
Austria | 12’
Director: Johannes Schiehsl

Starting his social work as a paramedic, young Patrick soon comes in contact with patients that are all suffering from the same problem: loneliness. As he tries to help, he gets himself into relationships that are way more demanding than expected.

Diamond dancers
Netherlands | 8’
Directors: Quirine Racke & Helena Muskens
A flash mob of elderly dancers at Dam Square in Amsterdam.

A curious conjunction of coincidences
Netherlands | 9’
Director: Joost Reijmers

Three seemingly unrelated incidents lead to an explosive climax in Amsterdam.