Festival
Welcoming Adresses
Dear young and older movie fans,
watching films is undeniably one of the most popular pastime activities in the daily lives of children and adolescents. It is therefore important that young people become aware of the complexitiy of the film medium.
For the 16th time already let us say: “roll it” and start the International SCHLINGEL Film Festival in Chemnitz. This year again, there will be exciting films that reflect the interests of children. Fun, adventure and entertainment will certainly not be forgotten. The young audience will be taken to foreign countries and to their sometimes very different worlds. All films are shown in their original languages, which will arouse your curiosity and make you want know more about these foreign cultures and languages.
I am pleased about the fact that last year alone, the International Children's Film Festival SCHLINGEL could enthral 9,000 visitors. With more than 100 films, of which about 80 in the competition programme, I am sure that the International Children's Film Festival 2011 will also be a great success. I wish those in charge of the 16th International Film Festival every success for the forthcoming film days. Moreover, I wish all young and old viewers exciting and eventful hours, and much success to the contestants.
Stanislaw Tillich
Minister President of the Free State of Saxony
and Patron of the Festival
Dear children,
dear visitors to the SCHLINGEL,
when the lights are slowly fading and the curtain opens, an exciting journey begins right in the cinema. The strange and foreign world, which sometimes seems unattainable, attracting attention and curiosity, is suddenly very close and tangible. An exchange that does not happen easily in our everyday lives. The 16th International Film Festival SCHLINGEL from 10 to 16 October 2011 invites us again to set out on this journey. Stories about small adventures, big wishes and lots of imagination. I’m looking forward to the International Film Festival SCHLINGEL, which invites the world to our city.
Directors and screenplay writers have recorded thoughts, worries and happy moments in moving films – very specific cinematic worlds imagined and produced for kids and teens. The idea of providing these films with a broad platform is welcomed by friends and supporters around the world. Therefore my heartfelt thanks to the organizers for their work and commitment.
I am very glad to take over the patronage of this year’s festival again. Good films are an entertaining educational journey for little cinema fans enabling them to get to know countries, people and stories that may be foreign to us, but touch us deeply and win our hearts. The SCHLINGEL program will once again succeed in doing so.
This year approximately 80 films are competing to obtain the favour of viewers. In addition to the international specialist juries the children themselves will choose the best films. In the European children’s jury, 16 children from eight European capitals will decide who receives the European Children's Film Award.
This time the film festival site is new. The 16th edition of festival films will be screened at Galerie Roter Turm. The little cinemagoers of the festival will surely move into the rooms quickly with enthusiasm and good humour.
I wish all festival visitors a good time in Chemnitz and moving moments in the diverse cinematic worlds.
Ihre Barbara Ludwig
Lord Mayor of the city of Chemnitz
The first SCHLINGEL children film event held in Chemnitz in 1996 laid the foundation stone for the now highly successful international film festival for children and young people. Since then, the SCHLINGEL has offered a broad forum for both German and international films and filled many viewers with enthusiasm thanks to exciting stories
from different cultures. Visitors to the first SCHLINGEL, who were still children then, are young adults now. Many will share their experience with the film medium with their own children.
The federal government has supported the SCHLINGEL for seven years now as part of our educational film promotions including the nationwide initiative “Vision Cinema”, whose school film weeks make a significant contribution to film education. We believe that viewing habits and media use of children and young people has to be trained early on in order to develop a sense of quality. Films are an opportunity to both gain an insight into our own identities and to arouse curiosity and understanding for the lives of our neighbors.
Thus one focus of the Chemnitz festival is traditionally directed at Eastern Europe. With a total of 135 productions from 39 countries – including many premieres – the SCHLINGEL organizing team under the direction of Michael Harbauer has drawn up a varied and attractive festival program again. I wish you an entertaining and inspiring festival week, stimulating conversations and extraordinary cinematic experience.
Bernd Neumann
Minister of State
to the Federa Chancellor
Federal Government Commissioner
for Culture and the Media
Europe loves European Festivals
A privileged place for meetings, exchanges and discovery, festivals provide a vibrant and accessible environment for the widest variety of talent, stories and emotions that constitute Europe’s cinematography.
The MEDIA Programme of the European Union aims to promote European audiovisual heritage, to encourage the circulation of films outside their own borders and to foster audiovisual industry competitiveness.
The MEDIA Programme acknowledges the cultural, educational, social and economic role of festivals by co-financing more than 90 festivals each year, programming more than 20,000 screenings of European works to nearly 3 million audience across Europe.
This year the MEDIA Programme is celebrating its 20th Birthday so we are especially proud to look back on how much the European film industry has developed over this period, and to stress our continued commitment to supporting the EU film industry in the future.
MEDIA is pleased to support the 16th edition of the International Film Festival for Children and Young Audience SCHLINGEL and we extend our best wishes to all of the festival goers for an enjoyable and stimulating event.
European Union
MEDIA PROGRAMME
Children and young people today often get lost in the media jungle, watch irrelevant programmes, listen to trivial stuff, play pesky PC games, thus wasting their precious lifetime. The SCHLINGEL film festival wants to oppose this trend. Its tenor is: arousing curiosity and imagination, training the aesthetic taste and stimulating thoughts. The children‘s and youth films, which are shown to a young Chemnitz audience in the various competition categories for one week a year, contribute to this objective. Poetic masterpieces, cinematic experiments, great cinema spectacle – anything is possible. Each of these films can do without shallowness, without any form or content superficialities, without any formal knick-knacks. These are films that “get to the bottom of the matter”, true and honest films. Given the neglected viewing and listening habits, it is hard to believe that children and young people give their attention to such films, suffer with their movie heroes and share their excitement. So every year the film festival SCHLINGEL is a powerful signal that art and quality can ultimately hold their ground.
Thanks to the organizers of the festival for offering the city of Chemnitz a cultural highlight, this year again and for the 16th time, providing many domestic and foreign directors and actors with a communication platform and presenting thrilling film events to a predominantly young audience.
The SLM (saxon state authority for private broadcasting and new media) as co-organizer wishes the festival its well-deserved popularity, a smooth course and a successful outcome.
Dr. Uwe Grüning
President of the
Media Council of SLM
With its 16th edition, the SCHLINGEL is entering unknown territory at prominent points of the festival. After the unfortunate closure of the Luxor Filmpalast, the SCHLINGEL actually leaves its nursery and moves into its new domicile, the Cinestar – Am Roten Turm. By taking advantage of the conditions of the house, the festival for children and young audience will be dedicated to a special issue of the festival even more intensely: under the motto „contact on equal terms“ directors and producers will not only present their films in Chemnitz. They will be accompanied by their small
and major protagonists to establish direct contact with the audience. The new format “SCHLINGEL Talk” makes this now possible even outside the cinema halls.This year 146 films from 38 countries will enter the SCHLINGEL stage. The two Croatian films “Lea & Darija” and “Koko and the Ghosts” as well as the German version of the Saxon animated film “The Seventh Raven” celebrate their world premieres. One international and three European premieres from Russia, Australia, Iran and the Saxon partner province of Québec in Canada could be invited to the SCHLINGEL. It is a great honor for the
SCHLINGEL festival to award the honorary SCHLINGEL for the first time to a children‘s film maker from the region: Günter Meyer. Generations of young and old movie lovers have greatly enjoyed films like “Spook under the Ferries Wheel” or “Kai in the Box”.
SCHLINGEL traditionally accompanies current children’s and youth film productions in Eastern Europe with a special geopolitical interest. In addition, this year’s festival wants to put a special focus on France. In collaboration with our partner film festival Cine-Jeune in Saint Quentin, three long and five short films have been integrated into
the program.The 16th SCHLINGEL will start on 10 October. The festival team and I cordially welcome all guests to Chemnitz and wish them a pleasant and interesting time.
Michael Harbauer
Festival Director