Bitfilm Festival for Digital Film in Berlin for the First Time

After guest appearances in New York, Tokyo, Barcelona and Paris, Hamburg’s Bitfilm Festival presents itself in Berlin for the first time this week.

Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 25, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

From Thursday to Saturday (August 27 to 29), Eiszeit-Kino in Kreuzberg is showing films nominated for the Bitfilm Awards in the categories “3D Space” (computer animation), “FX Mix” (digital mixed films), “Machinima” (films made in games), and “Politicool” (digital animations and mash-ups with a political message).

The film programs at Eiszeit-Kino (Zeughofstraße 20) begin at 20:00 each day and each last 45 minutes. Admission is 4 euros (reduced: 3 euros). Until September 24, all 66 films nominated for the Bitfilm Awards can be viewed and voted on at http://www.bitfilm.com/festival. The winners of the Bitfilm Awards, endowed with 10,000 euros, will be announced on October 1 at the award ceremony in Tel Aviv.

“This year we are placing an emphasis on political films,” explains festival director Aaron Koenig. “We have therefore introduced the new Politicool competition, in which we show films that approach political subjects with a new digital visual language.”

In addition, in cooperation with the onedotzero festival and the Japan Foundation, Bitfilm is presenting the special program “Otaku Attack” with digital animation from Japan. In its creative diversity, Japan’s visual pop culture knows almost no limits: from flashy to shocking and from poetic to fantastic, everything is included - the Bitfilm organizers call it a “colorful attack on the visual senses.” These films are only rarely shown on the big screen. Eiszeit-Kino, which has offered Berlin audiences a select Japanese film program for years, is the appropriate venue.

The program consists of four approximately 45-minute compilations featuring animated short films, music videos, commercials, motion graphics and game intros. Bitfilm has again collaborated with the London-based, world-traveling onedotzero festival. The program is rounded off by the 1991 feature film “Otaku No Video,” an unconventional mixture of anime film and documentary about the early-1990s otaku scene. It was produced by anime studio Gainax and is regarded as a cult classic of the Otaku Nation.