Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 8, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The Graduation Films competition category includes 60 entries, among them the HFF productions Chicken Wings by Pauline Kortmann and never drive a car when you’re dead by Gregor Dashuber.
In Chicken Wings, a cowgirl and a werewolf roam an inhospitable land when the Wild West was still wild. A chicken crosses their path and, as they argue fiercely over its most suitable use, they completely forget the dangers closing in on them.
Pauline Kortmann was born in Berlin in 1980. She trained as a media designer and immediately afterwards began studying at the HFF “Konrad Wolf”. She has studied animation there since 2004 and works freelance as an animator, illustrator and pixel artist for PC, mobile-phone and Game Boy games. Chicken Wings is her first animated film.
The animator was supported in producing the film by HFF students Martin Lischke (production), David Ziegler (sound), Johannes Repka and Marian Mentrup (music), and Nikolai Neumetzler, Klara Manzel, Volkram Zschiesche and Benjamin Kramme (voices).
In never drive a car when you’re dead, the clumsy hero stumbles across a long-forgotten piano. - Music leads him out of his neglected existence and into the city. - There he plays one final funeral march for the broken figures by the roadside.
Gregor Dashuber was born in Schongau in 1980. After completing school, he undertook internships at an art-book design agency in Munich and a graphic-design company in Berlin before studying animation at the HFF “Konrad Wolf”. Since graduating as a qualified animator in 2009, he has worked as a freelance animator, illustrator and filmmaker.
Alongside Gregor Dashuber, HFF students Marian Mentrup (music and sound design), Julie Lamarre (production), Martin Reimers (editing), and voice performers Nora Rim Abdel Maksoud, Eddie Irle and Volkram Zschiesche contributed to the film.
In the Music Videos competition, Hello Antenna by Veronika Samartseva and Anna Samoylovich competes with eight other entries for the prize. It tells the story of Susie, her mother, the Royel Family and shopping: an animated music video with many aeroplanes, antennas and a huge explosion.
Veronika Samartseva was born in St Petersburg in 1983. She has lived in Berlin since 1991 and studied animation at the HFF “Konrad Wolf” since 2003. In 2007, she participated in the HFF/CUC Summer Academy Beijing Berlin.
Anna Samoylovich was born in Moscow in 1980. She first studied architecture and then animation-film design at VGIK Moscow while working on several animation projects. She came to study at the HFF “Konrad Wolf” in 2006.
Other HFF contributors to the music video were Thomas Bergmann (camera) and Michal Krajczok (sound).
HFF graduate Tony Loeser is also represented out of competition in the Feature Films section with his production Mullewab – Friends Forever. Another HFF graduate, Olaf Enke, is showing Judas and Jesus in the Politically Incorrect Movies series, while HFF professor Gil Alkabetz presents his short animation The da Vinci Timecode in Short Films Out of Competition.
Alongside the official competition and out-of-competition sections, this year’s festival includes a German Focus series featuring the following HFF productions: The Moment (Thomas Voigt, 1999), Lazy Sunday Afternoon (Bert Gottschalk, 1999), Tauro (Matthias Daenschel, 2002), Pantoffelhelden (Susanne Seidel, 2004), Lucia (Felix Gönnert, 2004), Smoke (Claudia Romero, 2004), Trickster (Alexander Pohl, 2008) and My Happy End (Milen Vitanov, 2007).
The Annecy Film Festival is one of the world’s most renowned festivals dedicated to animated film and awards numerous prizes across its sections. HFF distributor Cristina Marx will accompany the competing students to Annecy, and once again it is time to keep fingers crossed for the university’s exceptionally successful animated films.
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