A very warm welcome to exground filmfest 26!
For the new festival edition we compiled for you, honored audience, a program of 200 international productions – a cross section of the independent films of 2012/2013 from more than 3,000 entered short- and feature-length films as well as the best of numerous other festivals. The biggest compliment for all our unpaid work would be you joining us in large numbers on our filmic journey around the world. Relax and lean back in the comfy chairs of Caligari FilmBühne and Murnau Filmtheater, let yourself be taken to other worlds and cultures, and experience aesthetic tidbits (e.g. the wonderful art film SHIRLEY – VISIONS OF REALITY from Austria) as well as melancholic tragicomedies (like this year's opening film BOY, the biggest box office success ever in New Zealand) and unusual, taboo-breaking documentaries (as the Austrian OUTING, going under your skin).
And the hard-boiled cineasts certainly will find their way to Kulturpalast, where the seats are a tiny bit firmer as in the other festival venues – yet the films there are more exground: trash de luxe – just think of the exground cult Gong-Show –, subcultural of John Water's muse Divine, and electronic underground from Moscow. To name but a few highlights. Here's where exground filmfest's roots in experimental- and underground film are still alive.
A special delicacy we offer with this year's country in focus: travel with us to the other end of the world, to New Zealand. What is special: for the first time we present a national cinematography in its development of hte past 60 years: exceptional and rarely shown findings from the archives can be seen as well as an early work of the „Lord of the Rings“, Peter Jackson, classics like Jane Campion's THE PIANO and new productions of talented New Zealand new blood.
In order to fulfill the Herculean task of exground filmfest, we need – apart from our passionate unpaid work - external collaborators, interns and more than 100 helping hands during the festival. Thus our thanks go to all those, who enable exground filmfest 26 in full bloom.
Our heartfelt thanks also go to all the festival's supporters, sponsors, partners and friends, whose financial support allowed for paying the rental fees and air tickets for the guests from the international film business as well as cover other expenses.
