Internationales Festival Zeichen der Nacht - Berlin - International Festival Signs of the Night



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*** BERLIN ***
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Berlin is still known as one of he most challenging towns in the world, to live, to exist, to be engaged, to be informed, to dicover cultural differences, to meet with people all over the world. Tolerance and fight for values is still a vital culture here. The festival want to add another invitation to discuss, to exchange and to be astonished in this town between East and West, North and South.
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The "International Festival Signs of the Night" uses the media of documentaries and short films to deliver specific information, inside views, and problematics of our societies today. A critical approach is preferred, dealing with social, political, psychological, philosophical, and technological problematics. The aim is to offer knowledge and to create cultural tolerance. The festival prefers films, which also artistically reflect on the possibilities of reality representation and manipulation. Languages more complex than linear and narrative ones are welcome.
 
 
*** HISTORY ***
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Since 2003 the "Festival International Festival Signs of the Night has been active worldwide. In the last few years we have presented some thousand films from around 70 countries in our generally yearly festivals and at the same time in around 140 programs in collaboration with cultural institutions and festivals in 33 countries with more to come, among them Algeria, Australia, Chile, Cuba, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Peru, Russia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States. In 2013 the festival became binational, and also takes place in Berlin and Saarbrücken (Germany); since 2015 it has become a multinational festival also realised in Bangkok, Lisbon, Tucuman, and Urbino.
*** CONCEPT ***
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The Festival presents films, which reflect new views, original imagery, and a critical approach to the crucial elements of modern human existence. It is a place for cinema that expands its own boundaries, that is astonishing, different, potentially free from the pressure of tradition, ready to give itself over to unpredictable experimentation. The festival shows films and audio-visual works from all over the world, which test new audio-visual languages and at the same time treat current problems and the situations of present-day societies. The purpose is to establish a global communication, which will escape the simplifications of the mass media.
 
 

The special artistic forms of these films, which combine sound, image, movement, rhythm, text, space, surprising perspectives, and different time structures not only convey an aesthetic purpose, but also broaden the possibilities of communication and understanding among people coming from very different mental, social, and psychological backgrounds.

The minor costs of digital production allow a worldwide production independent of both commercial influences and any kind of censorship. These independent productions create an alternative, an artistic space both very subtle and accessible to all, in contrast to what the mass media offer. The festival's responsibility in the new flood of images is to select those of cultural significance to transmit knowledge.

*** INTENTION ***
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Our objective is to establish a free cultural space for international communication, to create cultural awareness concerning differences and nuances of mental forms of expressions and lifestyles based on specific social conditions. In other words, we are focused on the ongoing global technical and cultural transformations in the actual societies, looking for works treating these aspects from a complex artistic viewpoint. The cinematographic and audio-visual media allow this exchange. The festival is the adequate form of its concretisation, consolidation, and reflection. In this sense, we want to create more than just a festival among many others. We want to establish a cultural forum of communication and transmission, which isn't provided by other media (mass media, social networks, etc.).