AKTUELLES

A big screen anniversary to come

Eberswalde sees preparations for the twentieth Provinziale to be held at Haus Schwärzetal from 14 to 21 October

For twenty years now, the provinces of the world have come together on Eberswalde’s big screen to tell their stories of survival and subsistence, of people and places, of settling down and migration. Some of the films and, above all, the encounters with their makers, have stuck to the memories of everyone here. Provinziale has come a long way, and the team would like to celebrate this together with our audience and all of our supporters. This festival comes with a selection of posters and T-shirts of past years, a display of pictures by our pioneer photographer Torsten Stapel, an extended booklet featuring personal pieces of retrospection and some new ideas. But the focus, as always, will be on the films.

Again, there was plenty of material to look through. More than 600 films from more than a quarter of the world’s countries – fifty-two, to be precise – have been submitted to take part in one of our four international competitions. In the final selection, 15 countries are represented. This year’s jury for the STACHEL award for the most successful discussion of sustainability issues will feature Prof Dr Uta Steinhardt of Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE), Christian Mehnert of the Kreiswerke Barnim utility company and local event organiser Udo Muszynski.

Luckily, our broad array of award donators have stood by us. This year’s Long Documentary competition will be furnished by the Brandenburg State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labour and Energy. The Short Documentary category will benefit from a donation by the Eberswalde municipality. The Short Feature Film award has been made possible by Sparkasse Barnim, the Animated Film competition is supported by the Eberswalde housing and property management company WHG, and the STACHEL jury award across all genres will be donated in equal parts by HNEE and Kreiswerke Barnim.

Likewise, we’ve always had a diverse landscape of sponsors and supporters. Besides the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg funding organisation, we could always rely on support from the Barnim District Administration and many local businesses such as the Autohaus an der Wilhelmsbrücke car dealership or Eberswalde’s Bäckerei Wiese bakery. Our heartfelt thanks go out to all of them on occasion of our twentieth anniversary.

We also recommend our new urban installation project, supported by WHG, which will use billboards in Eberswalde to show collages on the topics of province and film by our team member and cultural scientist Lars Fischer.

Another new item is supposed to enrich our programme with fresh impetus and a bit of surprise: this year’s competition blocks will be preceded by screenings from our project FILMKNACK – Youth Cinema Between Daily Life and Film Festival, which debuted this year thanks to support from the East German Sparkasse Foundation. You may look forward to a selection of short and crisp films presented by their young creators.

As previously, Provinziale 2023 will take place in and around Haus Schwärzetal, and the team have enjoyed conceiving a new entrance – you will have to tunnel your way through the Festival Shed.

Save the date and see you on 14 October!