Jury Statements
KUKI Festival
3/11/24 - 10/11/24
3/11/24 - 10/11/24
Jury Statements
Dear filmmakers of the film "Lupin".
We are a learning group of 27 children. The youngest just turned 6 years old. The oldest is 9 years old. 13 pupils voted for your film. There were 16 films to choose from.
We thought the movie was soo great!!!
We liked that the film was cut from paper.
Also the colours look so beautiful. We think it's cool that the film was only in grey, white and black. This makes the movie very different from most other animated movies. It's nice that it's not so colourful. The colours make the film seem quieter. The colours also fit well because the movie is set in the forest.
The story is beautifully told. We especially liked that wolves are in the main role. Wolves are such exciting and beautiful animals. It was a good idea that the children took care of the wolf and saved the wolf in the end. The wolf was cute. We like the trees and bushes a lot. We thought it was cool that the kids took the wolf to the forest.
The ending was nice. When the kids took pictures and watched the wolf with their dad, who is actually a hunter, and it didn't get shot.
Many, many thanks for the beautiful film. We hope that many children all over the world can see the film.
The 2nd place goes to Kiki la plume because: the raven helped the bird to find its way in nature and taught the bird to fly. And then the bird built its own nest. The film got 3 votes. It was funny that the bird made a butt-landing. It was a very funny movie. We laughed a lot. We thought it was cool that the animals were animated. And that the bird found a new friend in the raven. And that the raven then swung the lamp back and forth.
Thank you for making the movie. Yours, class LG6
We liked the movie because it was appropriate for our age. And we love action - don't we? Yes. I found it very exciting because there was an open ending. The movie was very well received by 10-year-olds because the movie had action. Especially the first minute of the movie. We liked the movie very much because the boy tried everything to find his mother. And we hope it will be a good ending. It was cool because these movies triggered feelings in me. The movie had an open ending, I think it's nice when movies have open endings because then you can decide how they should end.
And the first place goes to Les Champs Magnetiques!
Thank you to the KUKI team for letting us be the jury. It was a lot of fun to watch the films.
We are the class 5d!
Hello KUKI and spectators. We are the class 5d of Bornholmer Primary School and we are the jury of the 8+ and 10+ competition programs. Congratulations to all participants. All the short films were very nice but we could only choose two.
The film that won the second place was very very beautiful and it touched me very much. And it was fun to watch. It was good because it told about the life of a boy who couldn't do everything that other people can. We think the movie is really great because it teaches you to care more about people with disabilities and their daily challenges. We thought the movie was cool because the automatic escalator was very useful. And because it showed that all people are equal. We thought the movie was fantastic and exciting.
It was also nice to watch the films in the classroom because we couldn't go to the cinema. The film was important to us because it makes us talk about the topic of disability. The film touched us very much, because the gentle music fit well and I liked that the classmates helped him. The winner of the second place goes to: And then something changed by Eliza Hull from Australia.
How would you feel if you knew you were suffering from an illness that would eventually make you go blind and deaf? Although this film deals with a very sad topic, we found the film to be very inspiring and educational. It is the true story of a young girl who is struggling to understand and cope with her illness, at the same time trying to raise money to fund research on this very rare disease.
We liked the way the film director uses the metaphor of the wolf (as the sickness is called Wolfram illness) in his animation to show how Bertha comes to terms with her illness. Since the animation represented Bertha’s condition, it was interesting to see how Bertha confronts the wolf. At the beginning the animation showed a wolf attacking her which represented how she had difficulty coping with her condition. The last animation however showed her triumphantly controlling the wolf which was a metaphor for her being able to control her condition.
Another aspect in the film that touched us very much was how Bertha used her hobbies to cope with her condition. It was really nice to see an artist helping her to get an exhibition together in order to raise funds for research into Wolfram syndrome. The art gallery or the eyeopener as it was called was a great way for them to raise money for this very serious illness. The story of the film was very inspiring and the storytelling was also done very well.
The technical aspects and sound design in the film were also done expertly. Because at the beginning the music was more neutral and relaxing while it became very hopeful at the end. The camera angles were well-done for instance everything became very blurry when Bertha talked about how she could go blind or deaf, showing the viewer a glimpse of Bertha’s everyday life. The ending was also great because it showed her and her artist friend Jerome walking off in the sunset. The imagery in this scene was great because having the sun in the ending amplifies the positive feel of the ending.
This film also carries a very powerful message and that is: You can still do what you love, never let anything stand in the way. It is wonderful to see Bertha’s courage and how she continues to draw and sell her paintings to support wolfram research. Wolfram syndrome is a very rare condition that hasn’t had much research done into it, so not many people would be aware of its existence, leading to less people wanting to research it, so it’s important to draw attention to its existence. It is such an optimistic film and it gave us hope that there is a chance that we can beat this terrible disease one day.
The winner of this year’s short film festival in the 12+ and 14+ categories is Bertha en de Wolfram.
Congratulations to Tijs Torfs from Belgium.
Hello, we are 9th graders from the Nelson Mandela School. First of all we would like to thank the KUKI Short film Festival for giving us this wonderful opportunity to participate as a Jury-Class in this competition. After watching 14 Teen Screen 12+ and 14+ films, it was not an easy task to just choose two films for the awards. However after much discussion and debate we have picked out two films that clearly are outstanding. We will start with the Special Mention first:
The film we have chosen deals with a very important theme and we are glad that the film makers have decided to use animation to portray the serious message to the audience. The film talks about the effects of the AfD political party, and their ideology, which isn’t a topic that is usually discussed because of their Nationalist ideals, which are linked to nazi ideology. While this topic isn’t a comfortable thing to talk about, attention needs to be brought to the topic, so that people are aware of the Afd’s ideology and how harmful it can be.
It’s also completely animated, which allows the film to defy reality in creative ways and that the few places that do use color within the mostly colourless film, are used effectively to create a meaningful contrast.
We like how the movie is able to summarize the problems we have in Germany by making up a story about a girl who attempts to resist Neo-Nazism in Saxony where she lives. While travelling on a train she is confronted with tourists who tell her they love the beautiful landscape of Sachsen but would not want to live there because of Nazis. In the last election 33% of the population in Sachsen voted for the far-right AFD party. She tries to explain that not everyone there is a nazi but at that same moment she sees a freshly painted slogan above the train window that says “Deutschland den Deutschen.”This makes her very angry and she runs through the train trying to find the culprit who wrote that slogan.
The sound design is well-done in the film because it was able to increase intensity by using volume. While the girl was running through the train trying to find the nazi that wrote the slogan on the window, she repeats “1,2, Nazi!” in her head. This gets louder and louder which increases the intensity of the scene. Suddenly people transform into trees and the train plunges into a ravine with both sides moving towards each other forcing the girl to run to the exit at the end of the ravine. The imagery and the volume really made the film more intense and exciting which in my opinion made the film very enjoyable.
Last but not least we also found the plot twist near the end of the movie excellent. After the girl exits the train, she decides that running away from the problem is not the answer. She says Das Abhauen war war eine Scheissidee! And we agree! As the film suggests, we should instead fight against this kind of extreme ideology.
The Special Mention for this year’s competition goes to the animation film Obervogelgesang. Congratulations to Elias Weinberger and Ferdinand Erhardt!
The documentary form is still far too rare in short film. Yet it can manage to give us a compact, brief and all the more intense glimpse into real worlds. We think: more of it! Especially for children and young people.
Not only, but also for this reason, we want to award the FBW Jury Prize to an extremely successful representative of this form.
The film WELLEN AUS LICHT by Samuel Schwarz leads us gently, sensitively, full of playfulness and joy of discovery into the world of Frida. Bright, curious, incredibly smart and reflective, she takes us into her cosmos, discovers with us and explains her world to us. She literally shows us that her visual impairment cannot stop her from taking in her surroundings and striding through life with impressive strength.
The film succeeds in getting so close to this ravishing protagonist that we have the impression of roaming through the forest with Frida ourselves or feeling an ancient statue. In the entertaining as well as intense 15 minutes, we experience so much joie de vivre, imagination and creativity from Frida that the film almost seems to burst.
Samuel Schwarz also manages to combine the observing gaze of the documentary camera with the gentle animation of a sea monster. Based on Frida's drawings, her stories come to life, giving the film an additional narrative layer that deals directly with Frida and her skills, while giving us a highly emotional approach.
WELLEN AUS LICHT is the best example of the power of the short, documentary form and is the deserved winner of the FBW Jury Award. Congratulations.
There are young filmmakers among us who may not yet see themselves as "real" filmmakers. Therefore, we want to encourage with an honorable mention a young woman who has found her very own way to deal with the Corona situation.
Having just arrived for her first semester in her first apartment of her own, in a strange city, in a strange house, Corona and the lockdown catch up with her.
Using simple means, Liselotte Séchet's film LES TROIS PORTRAITS DU CHAOS succeeds in poetically and creatively portraying her view of the world and its challenges. Equally courageous and clever, she turns her inner life inside out: this reflection of a young woman contemplating the pandemic, being alone, inside and outside, impresses us deeply. She switches between French and German quite naturally, giving her video diary an engaging rhythm. "LES TROIS PORTRAITS DU CHAOS" tells honestly and directly about the emotional world into which so many young people are forced. We wish for more films of this kind: intimate, idiosyncratic and boundlessly creative. And we wish for more films by Liselotte Séchet.