SHARE
COPY LINK
OSCARS 2016

ART

German live-action short takes student director to Oscars

A German student filmmaker has been nominated for the "best live action short film" Oscar by the jury – placing his work in lights alongside blockbuster movies and A-list actors.

German live-action short takes student director to Oscars
Patrick Vollrath pictured in Hamburg in June 2015. Photo: DPA

Patrick Vollrath's film Alles wird gut (Everything will be OK) came third in the Student Oscars awarded in September 2015.

The short follows a divorced father who collects his eight-year-old daughter as usual but ends up taking her on a fateful journey.

But now it's been nominated alongside some of 2015's biggest hit films including Mad Max and The Martian for the real Oscar contest.

“We all hope that this will be a big boost to his career, it will be a great calling-card for him in the industry,” Katja Jäger of the Vienna Film Academy told The Local.

It's the crowning glory for a film that has already won a slew of awards across Europe.

A still from the movie “Alles wird gut” (Everything will be OK) by German film-maker Patrick Vollrath.

Born in central Germany, Vollrath trained in Munich as a video editor in the mid-2000s before entering the Vienna Academy in 2008.

'Alles wird gut' was originally produced as the final project to complete his studies – but has taken Vollrath far, far further.

“We're extremely happy. After winning the first Student Academy Award in the history of the Film Academy in September, now this is a great distinction for both the film-maker and for us,” Jäger said.

It's the first time a student at the Vienna Film Academy has been nominated – although the school isn't without a history at the Academy Awards.

Jäger studied in the class of renowned Austrian director Michael Haneke, who himself won an Oscar for Amour in 2012 and has two Palme d'Or awards from the Cannes film festival to his name.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

SHOW COMMENTS