1. Internationales Filmfestival Frankfurt

»The most exciting things happen in the dark« ­ the motto of the First International Frankfurt Film Festival (9 - 16 January 2002), the »season’s opener« scheduled just after the holiday season and a month before the Berlinale. This eye-catching phrase, lanced onto the back of a cyclist’s leather jacket as he cruises the city, is seen on the front cover of a program booklet listing over 100 films from 21 countries selected under the aegis of the festival troika Thomas Draschan, Sascha Linse, and Olaf Möller. At first glance, one notices that Asian cinema fit neatly into several of the 15 programs slated for seven venues under the titles: Japan, France, USA, Portugal, Italy, Israel, Russia, China/Hongkong/Taiwan, »Straubiana« (films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet), »The World« (a potpourri of odds-and-ends), Martin Scorsese (his favorite Italian films), Lee Myung Se (South Korean retrospective), Good Harvest (low-budget Philippino films), Jean-Claude Rousseau (French experimentalist), and Frankfurter Filmschau (filmmakers from Frankfurt and Land Hessen).

Indeed, as aptly listed in the 13 sub-programs under the Frankfurt film showcase, the city is a hotbed of filmmaking talent ­ particularly the short film. Further, Frankfurt has its world-recognized Film Museum, thanks to the visionary Hilmar Hoffmann, the former cultural minister and now president of the Goethe-Institut. Also, there’s the annual Hessian Film Prize, awarded last year to Christian Petzold’s Die innere Sicherheit (The State I Am In). To spotlight a young talent under the »Hessian Stories« category, then Felix Lenz’s Alarm, a 20-minute short feature by a student at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in the TFM (Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft) department. As noted in a review in our KINO 75 issue: »Lenz’s camera-eye links three separate viewpoints within an exact time frame, thus interpreting simultaneous reactions to the dilemma with very little added dialogue. At the same time, since the »alarm« bell was sounded by the senior citizen in her concern for the baby and young mother, three generations are linked into the narrative line to add depth and perspective. For Alarm is essentially about ourselves, about the human condition, about life and death.« See it.

Ronald Holloway