Design by Ina Gereke

The 18. Film Festival will present the short-film prize LEO for the second time this year, which is awarded by a three-member jury. The "Leo" is a prize that aims at the combination of film and music or film and sound. The images and sound alone do not pay a signifi- cant role. The main concern of the "Leo" is the combination of these two essential elements into one convincing whole. The "Leo" does not aim at music clips although there are some in the running; rather it aims at films that are striking due to an original, individual and innovative mixture of pictures and music, or sound in general.

The 25 contributions for the "Leo" this year come from 11 different countries, none is older than 18 months and they represent every conceivable genre from animation to experimental film, from short stories to peaceful documentaries. The three member jury will award a first and a second prize for the most successful combination of image and music or sound in a short film. The first prize is €2.000, the second €1.000 and the money will be equally divided between the director and the composer.




The JURY


Robin Mallick



Robin Mallick was born in Wuppertal in 1970 of German and Indian parents. After doing his national service and a bank apprenticeship he moved on to Passau University. Here he did languages, economics and cultural studies specializing in Spain and Latin America. In this connection he gave guest performances one year long at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has been living in Dresden since 1998. Since 2000 he has been festival director at the Dresden Film Festival. In addition, since 2002 he has been General Secretary of the European Coordination of Film Festivals, which comprises a network of some 235 festivals.


Peter Kiefer



Peter Kiefer was born in Aachen in 1961. He studied at the music school in Cologne as well as film and television studies and philosophy at Cologne University. As a composer and intermedia sound artist he has been working on the artistic possibilities of music, sound and noise in an audio-visual context. Since 1984 he has created compositions and musical performances and film music. He has composed music for television, videos, ballet and the theatre here and abroad as well as experimental compositions for ensembles, electronic music and for the Studio of Acoustic Art of the WDR radio station.


Jürgen Knieper



Jürgen Knieper was born in Karlsruhe in 1941. His mother played the violin and his father the piano. After graduating from high school in 1961 he studied composing in Berlin. His first film music was created in 1970 for Wim Wenders’ "Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter". This resulted in long years of working together. He also worked with Veit Helmer, Helma Sanders, Hans Geissendörfer, and Roland Klick – just to name a few. He has been working for television, too, since 1970, among others, for the popular series "Lindenstraße", "Praxis Bülowbogen" and "Der König".




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