67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen – Asian Presence

By Asian Film Festival on April 29, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

We take a look at the 24 Asian short films that will be screened at the 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany), which will take place online from May 1st -10th, 2021.

IMPORTANT
Programmes can usually be viewed online for 48 hours here as many times as you want. BUT the programmes of the International, the German and the NRW Competition will each be shown twice as a continuous programme at a fixed time (therefore not streamed for 48 hours). Please be advised that hours display here are for local hours (GMT+2).

International Competition

**8’28’’** by Su Zhong – China | 2021 – 8 minutes

It’s a one-shot film about violence and blood in a turbulent world, named after the film’s duration. But _8’28”_ is should hardly be interpreted as a mirror of the pandemic era, since the film’s sound creation and final edit all took place before the catastrophe arrived. As usual, I have done all the work on the film myself. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 6th, 2021 | Thursday | 5:00 LIVE (GMT+2)
May 7th, 2021 | Friday | 2:00 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

**Cells and Glass** by Yuki Hayashi – Japan | 2020 – 10 minutes

The protagonist is a glass artisan who has undergone a transplant of an organ generated in an animal’s body. While hospitalized for the transplant, he is asked by his friend A to ‘make a glass vessel out of window glass from [A’s] old house’. After a successful transplant, various things go through the protagonist’s mind while he is making the glass piece. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 8th, 2021 | Saturday | 11:00 am LIVE (GMT+2)
May 9th, 2021 | Sunday | 6:30 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

Trailer:

**Count** by Adjani Arumpac – Philippines | 2020 – 13 minutes

_Count_ is a short video essay that probes into an internalized historical misalignment. It is a formal interrogation into this unseen discrepancy that has exponentially grown throughout the centuries. It starts with the author’s sons, as they start their online distance learning during a pandemic raging in the midst of a murderous drug war, both tragedies with fatalities miscounted and uncounted. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 9th, 2021 | Sunday | 2:00 pm LIVE (GMT+2)
May 10th, 2021 | Monday | 5:00 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

Trailer:

**Home** by Ngima Gelu Sherpa – Nepal | 2020 – 20 minutes

A young Nepali man, preparing to launch a film-making career in Europe, is suddenly summoned home to the Everest region. His father, a livestock farmer like most Sherpas before they became known for mountaineering, is ailing. In this intimate portrait, the film-maker explores his relationship to home and his parents, and the world of tradition and ritual he thought he had left behind. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 6th, 2021 | Thursday | 11:00 am LIVE (GMT+2)
May 8th, 2021 | Saturday | 9:30 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

**I Am the People_2** by Xiaofei Li – China, USA | 2020 – 24 minutes

This group of people, this collective, has always existed, coming and going, waxing and waning, sometimes vague and indistinct, sometimes lucidly defined. Sometimes I found that ‘I’ became ‘you’ and ‘you’ became ‘I’. Sometimes I found that I was not myself, and neither were you. Sometimes I was ‘us’, and at the same time the plural ‘you’ or maybe even ‘them’. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 7th, 2021 | Friday | 8:00 pm LIVE (GMT+2)
May 9th, 2021 | Sunday | 12:30 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

Trailer:

**Self Surgery** by Hikari Wajima – Japan | 2020 – 6 minutes

How do we accept our body, hair and skin colours, frame, muscle and fat, which we can’t change forever? The question arose from my experience of dancing classic ballet and studying abroad in the USA four years ago. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 8th, 2021 | Saturday | 11:00 am LIVE (GMT+2)
May 9th, 2021 | Sunday | 6:30 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

**Random People** by Arden Rod Condez – Philippines | 2020 – 7 minutes

In times of necessary physical distancing, ten couples from the film-maker’s home town allow cameras into their homes, not to disturb but capture any delicate exchange. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 6th, 2021 | Thursday | 11:00 am LIVE (GMT+2)
May 8th, 2021 | Saturday | 9:30 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

Trailer:

**Transparent, I am** by Yuri Muraoka – Japan | 2020 – 12 minutes

In the year 2020, when the world was forced to ‘change’, I wanted to confirm what changed and what did not change in me. The white mask I wore became the screen projecting my past. My family is sometimes hurt, but support me as I suffer from schizophrenia. We live today while looking for the answer to ‘Who are we?’ (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 9th, 2021 | Sunday | 2:00 pm LIVE (GMT+2)
May 10th, 2021 | Monday | 5:00 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

Trailer:

**Walking on the Chairs** by Jeamin Cha – South Kore | 2020 – 11 minutes

There are people cleaning the stadium, where excitement and cheers pass by. They take charge of each floor of seats and clean up the garbage. When the difference in their cleaning skills and speed is revealed, it looks like walking on the seats is a sport or competition. As these scenes are shown, the collected conversations are read out. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
May 6th, 2021 | Thursday | 11:00 am LIVE (GMT+2)
May 8th, 2021 | Saturday | 9:30 pm LIVE (GMT+2)

International Online Competition

**Anchoring** by Haris Yuliyanto – Indonesia | 2020 – 15 minutes

Twenty-seven-year-old Tirta works as a crew member on a domestic ferry crossing. Experiencing financial problems, he also has to face the reality that his work contract will come to an end. His efforts to extend the contract with the transportation company were hindered by the presence of a government system. This situation made him question the future of his seaman’s career. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 3rd (Monday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**Birthday** by Yuka Sato – Japan | 2020 – 9 minutes

What is birth? It is said that being born into this world is the beginning of suffering: dukkha. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 2nd (Sunday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**Dangerous Bridge** by Aixing Wang – China | 2020 – 34 minutes

In China, most of the young people in the countryside moved to the cities for better job opportunities. Only children and old people are left behind. They live around this river and this bridge. This dangerous bridge has not been repaired for 20 years. It seems that all the problems, the persons and the objects in the countryside have been forgotten. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 3rd (Monday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**I‘m Disguised, Right in Front of You** by Zhu Changquan – China | 2020 – 10 minutes

Right / Now I am a monkey / A hundred-eye monkey / Right / Just now / I disguised / The hundred-eye monkey / In front of you / Squatting on the branches / Curling up like a monkey / With brown hair all over the body / So resemble / I keep still, really still / The leaves above my head keep me warm at night / It might be raining soon / But that’s fine / Leaves are water-proofed / I remain still / I am away from everything under the leaves / They keep me invisible from anyone or anything / Like bears, goats, mosquitos, earthworms, and even another piece of leave / I am safe, thus, I will keep being still / I feel fine / Yes, I think this is me / The look of my body doesn’t mean anything to me anymore / As long as I close my eyes / I could be anything I want (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 3rd (Monday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**Kalsubai** by Yudhajit Basu – India | 2020 – 20 minutes

This is an ethnographic film exploring the legend of the Mahadeo Koli goddess Kalsu, whose story and identity remain impregnated in the consciousness of the women of the tribe even today. The film tells the story of the goddess while drawing visual contrasts between primordial and contemporary images. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 1st (Saturday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

Trailer:

**Rumi X Phantasm** by Khavn de la Cruz – Philippines | 2020 – 10 minutes

Two kids. Riddles without answers. Deconstructed proverbs. Rats. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 3rd (Monday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**The Other Garden; Joel’s Garden** by Go-Eun Im – Netherlands, South Korea | 2021 – 12 minutes

There were rumours of another garden hidden among trees. This forgotten garden contains cycles of harmonious conflict and perpetual negotiation of life and death. Joel, a gardener, is a protector of the defenceless and a caretaker of many creatures. We retrace the dialogical gardens of Alphonse Karr, Karel Capek and Doris Lessing and reconstruct Joel’s year with irregular and uneven months. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 3rd (Monday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**The ___ World** by Peixuan Ouyang – USA |2020 – 18 minutes

A personal essay about connection and disconnection, in and through different realities. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 2nd (Sunday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

Children’s and Youth Film Competition

**In Search of Chok Chok** by Dayoon Kim – South Korea | 2020 – 20 minutes

Yeon-woo has a hard time making friends after changing to a new school. On a rainy day, she finds a snail on her way home. From then on, she thinks the snail is her only friend and names it Chok Chok. One day Yeon-woo’s only friend, the snail, disappears. While searching for it, she meets Dajeong. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 7th (Friday) 9:00 am (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**Five Pebbles** by Paanchika – India | 2020 – 14 minutes

Little Miri sets off across a desert of salt pyramids. She is followed by an outcast, as they are forbidden to play together. What follows is a tale of friendship, where the bounds of society unravel one pebble at a time. Even today, India judges with a lens of casteism. _Paanchika_ portrays how friendship survives all these social norms. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 8th (Saturday) 9:00 am (GMT+2) for 48 hours

Trailer:

**Friend** by Gan Wang – Japan | 2020 – 3 minutes

At the forest river, a fox meets a bucket and they become friends. As it rains, the fox wears the bucket on his head. What will happen next? (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 7th (Friday) 9:00 am (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**Stay with Me** by Rika Mayumi – Japan | 2020 – 2 minutes

This is the story of when my dog and I were here. I was just daydreaming. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 8th (Saturday) 9:00 am (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**Step Into the River** by Weijia Ma – France, China | 2020 – 15 minutes

Lu and Wei are two young girls living in a village nestled on the banks of a river. As the one-child policy has led some families to drown baby girls, they both have a special relationship with this river, which looks like a cradle of tragic stories. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 8th (Saturday) 9:00 am (GMT+2) for 48 hours

**The Frolic** by Yi-Han Jhao – Taiwan | 2020 – 4 minutes

The kids frolic with the insects on the grass. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 7th (Friday) 9:00 am (GMT+2) for 48 hours

MuvI International Award

**Are You Alright** (Sofia Ashraf) directed by Sapan Taneja – India | 2020 – 4 minutes

_Are you alright_ talks about depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder. The many faces we see on-screen reflect the multitude of emotions that we experience and the ones we try so hard to suppress and hide. The film was made as part of a project called _Caffenol 7266_, a collaboration with artist and rapper Sofia Ashraf. (Oberhausen 2021)

Screening Schedule:
Available online from May 2nd (Sunday) 8:00 pm (GMT+2) for 48 hours

To know more about the festival please go to: https://www.kurzfilmtage.de/en