11th Edition

Concept

As new technologies become an ever more present part of our extended selves, our cyborg future is here. Caught between utopian aspirations for ourselves as a species and dystopian alterations of the world we live in, we have now reached a turning point that asks for a radical transformation of the human society.
So how can we sustainably understand and integrate new alterities (robots, cyborgs, AI etc.) into our constantly changing social realities without reevaluating our own identity as humans?

Are you a robot? Please confirm you are not. Our cellphone, tablets and computers ask us to affirm our identity by negation. And we ourselves, as humans, insist on affirming our power over each other by negating our singular or collective experiences and identities in the name of ephemeral constructs such as borders, race, gender, religious beliefs, national identities and/or economical status. Which raises the question: What does it mean to be human today? And what value does humanity hold if we continue to dehumanize ourselves by weaponizing alterity? This are the questions we invite our audiences to answer (hopefully, collectively) while discovering the works included in our program. (Oana Ghera – Artistic Director)

International Competition Jury

Antoine Chapon

Visual artist and director, Antoine Chapon studied fine arts and philosophy in France.
His works question the relationship between landscape, new technologies and traumatic memories and have been exhibited at prestigious institutions such as ZKM | Karlsruhe (Germany), Centre Pompidou (France) and Venice Architecture Biennale (Italy). His first short film, presented for the first time in Romania in the international competition of the tenth edition of BIEFF, won
the Award for Best Short Film at Visions du Réel (2020). The film has been selected at Sundance (2021), Telluride (2021) and Sarajevo (2021).

Angelika Ramlow

Angelika Ramlow studied theatre and film studies and literature at Free University of Berlin. She is a project manager of Arsenal Distribution with a focus on experimental film, video art and installations. She is part of the Forum Expanded team and has coordonated curatorial programs and lectures at Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, IFF Rotterdam, Kansk Filmfestival (Russia), The 4-VIDEOFORMA Festival in St. Petersburg, Dokfest Kassel, (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico (A Coruña, Spain).

Mathieu Janssen

Mathieu Janssen studied Sociology in Nijmegen (The Netherlands). His passion for the short film format motivated him to organise many short film screenings along the years, as well as to write numerous interviews with short film directors. In 2013 he co-founded Deep End Film. Next to film distribution, he is a pre-selector at Vienna Shorts and he is the head of the competition section at the Go Short Film Festival Nijmegen, where he first started working in 2016 as part of the selection committee of Go Short’s student competition.

National Competition Jury

Andreea Pătru

Andreea Pătru is a Romanian film critic and programmer currently based in Spain. She is a Tenerife Shorts programmer and a selection committee member of Las Palmas International Film Festival and Valladolid International Film Festival. Previously she worked for Romanian Film Promotion, the founder of Transilvania International Film Festival. Former coordinator of Pavilion art center in Bucharest. A graduate of Locarno Critics Academy (2015) and Sarajevo Talents (2016), her writing has appeared in several international publications, including Senses of Cinema, Kinoscope, Vague Visages, Indiewire, and Desistfilm.

Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal

Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal is a Mexican programmer, film critic and film distributor. He is a co-founder and co-director of La Ola Cine, a film distribution company based in Mexico City. He currently works as a programmer at Black Canvas FCC, Reykjavik Film Festival and Daimon. He has curated programs, films and retrospectives for Cineteca Nacional Mexico, DA Films and Berlin Critic’s Week. His texts about cinema have been published in Cinema Scope, Film Comment, MUBI Notebook and on editorial efforts of Locarno, Viennale, Mar del Plata, among others.

Charlotte Bohn

Charlotte Bohn studied philosophy and cultural studies in Berlin, Vienna and Chicago.
She is working on a philosophical dissertation on Simone Weil and for various projects and festivals
in the field of Performing Arts and Moving Image.
Since 2019 she is part of the Forum Expanded team at the Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin.