The dffb (German Film and Television Academy Berlin) will be showing four programs consisting of 24 student films at this year’s Viennale. While the majority of them were made within the past five years, they are interspersed with a few films from the preceding decades that, to a certain extent, can be considered as milestones marking the history of the dffb. More is not intended.
Thus, this selection, which was made by the retiring dffb director, Hartmut Bitomsky, with the support of colleagues from the student administration, is by no means a representative selection.

These are works of extremely varied styles and stylistics, different provenances and genres, set between cinema and television. The contrasts could hardly be greater. The dffb does set standards, of course, and they change and vary from film to film, often even within a work. And what else can one expect of student films?

The training at the dffb is work-driven. Of course we do have seminars, workshops and courses. So it certainly isn’t a simple case of “learning by doing.” But fundamentally, everything at the academy revolves around filmmaking as such. It should be intelligent, daring and risky, because we are working on a future in which the students will be our filmmakers. We are working on the future of cinema. Thus, the students are asked to reinvent filmmaking for themselves and for us, including their mistakes and failures. It is a melting-pot in which the elements of filmmaking are simmering, just waiting to be poured into a new mold.

In recent years, more than 240 films have been created annually: smaller and bigger ones, longer and shorter ones, feature films, documentaries, exercises, experiments, jokes and whims. Some of them will never be completed, some will take years, but most of them will see the light of day in one form or another. The dffb is not only an academy, but also a real and not just classical film studio, on this side of the edge of an industry that these days exists only as fantasy, propaganda or conformism. The techniques evolve and become visible as the objects take shape.

(Hartmut Bitomsky)

The Green Beret, Carlos Bustamante, D 1967
Der einsame Wanderer, Philipp Sauber, D 1967
BRDDR, Lily Grote, D 1981
Honeymoon, Marc Schlichter, Bernd Löhr, D 1990
Schöne gelbe Farbe, Angela Schanelec, D 1991
Süden, Christian Petzold, D 1990
Kroko Sylke Enders, D 2001
Am See, Ulrike von Ribbeck, D 2002
Die amerikanische Botschaft, David Sieveking, D 2004
Blackout, Maximilian Erlenwein, D 2005
Tempelhof, Eva Stotz, D 2005
Firn, Axel Koenzen, D 2006
Geburtstag, Lawrence Tooley, D 2006
Gimmy Your Shoes, Anika Wangard, D 2006
Hase und Glück, Ikiru, D 2006
Délire de Négation, Janosch Orlowsky, D 2007
Mein Vater schläft, Grzegorz Muskala, D 2007
Red, Joanna Asthon-Jones, D 2007
Vor dem Konzert, IJ. Biermann, D 2007
Es war einmal ein König, Katharina Wyss, D 2008
Moonlight, Piotr Reimer, D 2008
Was bleibt, David Nawrath, D 2008
Kokon, Till Kleinert, Tom Akinleminu, D 2009
Lenny, Cyril Amon Schaublin, D 2009
Spatzen, Jan Speckenbach, D 2009