welcome

How do we welcome 2021? Good question. In 2020, we actually wanted to celebrate our 30th anniversary with you in the cinema. That was already tricky to communicate, since we managed to do two festivals a year in our first two years of existence. Well, we didn’t have to explain that last year due to Covid, as lockdown was declared two weeks before the kick-off of our planned hybrid edition.

Now, we hope that the 34th edition can take place in front of live audiences in our 31st year. Once again, we have hybrid plans: all the films from exground filmfest will be presented in our venues, in compliance with all public health guidelines, and the great majority of them will also be available for streaming on-demand, which you can watch from the comfort of your couch.

Looking at current Covid regulations, we decided as a festival to use the so-called 2G policy (meaning admission is reserved for vaccinated or recovered individuals). Not because we wish to exclude anybody, but because we don’t have any other choice economically – since who wants to pay more for a test than a cinema ticket? And, of course, we don’t want to expose anyone who isn’t vaccinated to any risks either. Our appeal to you: please get vaccinated and come to the cinema! In the event that you’d rather not or you can’t, then use our online offer!

In any case, hybrid means that once again we had to organise two film festivals in parallel, and that’s why we are proud that we, the organisational team, continue to pull off this feat on a voluntary basis. Our thanks go first of all to all the funders, sponsors, partners and friends of the festival, whose financial support makes it possible for us to do a hybrid festival in the first place. Special thanks here go to the State Capitol Wiesbaden, the Hessen State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts, HessenFilm und Medien GmbH and Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain. And warm thanks also go to all our helpers, without whom we couldn’t put on the festival.

As always, we have assembled a worthwhile programme featuring over 150 productions, a cross section of the international cinema class of 2020/21, chosen from around 2,000 submitted short and feature-length films. The greatest compliment for our selection would be if you would come to our venues or take advantage of our online programme.

We are looking forward to ten eventful festival days full of new (cinematic) impressions!

Your festival team from exground filmfest

 

greeting Karin Wolff
greeting Axel Imholz
greeting Angela Dorn