Expanding Access: Oberhausen Youth Selection to Reach Children in Hospitals Across Europe
As part of a new collaboration between the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the Film in Hospital program, a film from Oberhausen’s Children´s and Youth Film Competition this year will be screened in European hospitals. At the same time, Marija Georgiev, the program director of the Kids Meet Art Association, and Daniel Lundquist, head of programming of BUFF Malmö Film Festival, partners from the Film in Hospital family, will serve as jury members at Oberhausen
The short documentary “Just Jools,” directed by Ezra Verbist, is part of this year’s Oberhausen competition program for children and youth. This inspiring and powerful portrait of a girl who discovers that there is no wrong way to dance fits perfectly with the selection criteria of the Film in Hospital program.
The film will be available on the VOD platforms of all European partners within the Film in Hospital network starting April 28th, the same day it premieres in Oberhausen. Children and young people in hospital care across Europe will be able to access it through Film in Hospital partner platforms. Following the festival, the film will remain available on the platform for one year, while live screenings in hospital wards will be included as part of the “Oberhausen on Tour” program.
Konrad Neiße, head of the Oberhausen Children´s and Youth Film Competition shared his excitement with the collaboration: “This year we decided to collaborate with Film in Hospital to make quality short films from around the world even more accessible. Bringing short film, that is most of the time exclusively screened at festivals, to vulnerable audiences who can not personally attend such festivals, is just one reason we love about the project and why we got engaged with it. We as festivals and curators of programmes
for children and young people always think of how we can bring young audiences into the cinema to show them films they might otherwise never see. But we rarely think about bringing these films/bringing cinema to audiences that cannot attend such screenings because of their physical or mental health situation. Collaborating with Film in Hospital helps us to be more inclusive and accessible in bringing international, quality short films to young audiences who are interested in educational but most importantly emotional films and cinema. Their incredible work makes it not only possible for young people in exceptional situations to engage with international short films, but also to help them to deal with their situation. We are therefore very happy to have been approached by this project to become one of their guest/partner festivals this year and to contribute a film from our selection to their effort bringing cinema to places and young audiences that otherwise have no access to it.”
Since 1978, exceptional short films for children and youth have had a firm place in Oberhausen. In 7 competition programmes reaching from 3 years to teenagers aged 16 and older, short films from around the world and every genre are shown to kindergarten groups, school classes and young festival audiences. As it is a tradition in Oberhausen, the chidren’s and youth section also tries to include especially but not exclusively experimental works. However what makes this section differ from the regular programme is that it is not only the collective experience of watching short films together in cinema, but talking about what you saw after each film. So all of the programmes are accompanied by an educational moderation and Q&As, making it possible to directly engage in the ideas and impulses of the young audiences. In addition to the competition, curated programmes are also shown. These have mostly been curated, planned and organised by young people from Oberhausen in extensive workshops. The participatory factor is a core to the work of the children’s and youth film section in Oberhausen. That is why every year the festival collaborates with two schools, from which students fill in the roles of the children and the youth jury for the competition, they become curators for their own programmes and filmmakers for the yearly created trailer. Furthermore, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen offers workshops and seminars every year for educators, multiplicators as well as for young film enthusiasts and school classes.
