At long last, the 24th European Media Art Festival will commence this Wednesday in Osnabrück! The Lower Saxony Minister of Science and Culture, Professor Dr. Johanna Wanka, the Consul of the Japanese Consulate General in Hamburg, Hiroyuki Yakabe, and Karin Jabs-Kiesler, Mayor of the City of Osnabrück, are expected to attend the opening ceremony in the Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche.

The festival will then kick off at 22:00 hrs in the Lagerhalle with the first of a total of 170 short and feature-length films in 25 film programmes, 29 installations in the exhibition, 9 lectures, 8 workshops, 7 performances, 2 parties and a Media Art Garden at 13 different locations in Osnabrück – this sums up EMAF 2011 in figures.

One of the special highlights of the programme, besides the performances “Rheo” by Ryoichi Kurokawa from Japan and “Mortals Electric” by Telcosystems from the Netherlands, is the film “Unter Kontrolle” by Volker Sattel. In his documentary, the director highlights the fact that the technology involved in the so-called peaceful use of nuclear technology originates from the Cold War era of the 1950s. The German nuclear landscape rushes past the viewer, showing people – generally men – trying to control the antiquated technology. In the process, they reassure us: “When faults occurred in the past, they were always due to the inadequacies of the operator. The actual system is able at all times to regulate and control itself or, if necessary, switch itself off” – it always has itself under control.

“LOOM” by Ilija Brunck, Jan Bitzer and Csaba Letay is a particular highlight of the Media Campus programme “100 years of Hollywood and the succession”. “LOOM” received the award for “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project” at the Annual VES Awards in Los Angeles. Each year, the Visual Effects Society awards prizes to outstanding works in the field of film, animation, TV, commercials and video games.

The EMAF also has a number of awards to confer, to be announced at the Lagerhalle in Osnabrück on Sunday at 20:00 hrs. The jury of the Verband der Deutschen Filmkritik will award the prize for the best German experimental film of the year. In addition, an international jury will confer the “Dialog-Preis” of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the “EMAF-Award” and, for the first time, a “Newcomer-Award”. Following the award ceremony, the “Best of EMAF 2011” will be screened – the festival’s grand finale.

To mark the start of the festival, a free “EMAF app” will be available with detailed information on events, the programme and integrated social media.