12th Short Film Festival Cologne. Crossing Genres – New Aesthetics, New Narratives, New Technologies

The Cologne Short Film Festival (KFFK) has been held annually since 2006 and offers North Rhine-Westphalia's media metropolis Cologne a lively forum for independent short film. In November 2018, the International Visitors Programme enabled four guests from the Netherlands, Uruguay, Greece and India to take part in the 12th edition of the festival, as well as to visit and make contact with the local scene.

The focus of the programme was on the festival section "New Aesthetic" and this year's motto "The End of Utopia?" Here, the participants dealt with current, burning questions concerning the influence of technical innovations on cinema and the future of storytelling. Through visits to selected institutions and exchanges with experts, the guests were also able to gain a deeper insight into the film and media industry in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Among other things, the guests visited the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) and the Cologne Game Lab (CGL), the Institute for Game Development & Research at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, had exchanges with those in charge and teachers, and made a detour to Dortmund. There, the programme not only included a visit to the Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) and its exhibition "Computer Grrrls" on the relationship between gender and technology in history and the present, but also a meeting with Edwin Jacobs, the director of the Dortmunder U - Zentrum für Kunst und Kreativität (Dortmund U - Centre for Art and Creativity), who explained to the visitors the concept of the centre, which places a special focus on the inclusion of digital media and the promotion of creativity.