Unendlicher Spass (Infinite Jest)
Festival and motto
The 36th Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media takes place from 12 to 15 January 2023. The festival venues are FITZ - Das Theater animierter Formen and tri-bühne at the Tagblattturm Areal and Kunstbezirk at the Gustav-Siegle-Haus. Beyond the festival period, the latter will be host to the media and net art exhibition until 17 January 2023. For the 36th time, the best submissions from the Open Call - advertised on an international scale - in the competition sections short film, media in space and network culture, and the best music videos competing for the Baden-Württemberg Music Video Buggles Award in cooperation with the Pop-Büro Region Stuttgart are at the core of the festival. In addition, the Stadtbibliothek (city library), ifa-Galerie Stuttgart, and the KULTUR KIOSK are our satellite venues. Other exhibition venues are Gedok Galerie, Institut français and Kunstraum 34.
Creating access – that was and is the goal of the Stuttgarter Filmwinter. How to achieve this? With unusual formats that allow us to think outside the box. With new alliances between the fields of art and culture. With established classics that work well. Who do we want to do this for? For everyone! Programmes that are aimed already at children and young people are provided with a minimum age. We look forward to exchanging ideas with experts, colleagues, social workers, teachers and the public. Many programmes are for free because times are rough. Donations are always welcome. We are happy that we can go “on the road” on a long and exciting journey to a festival for everyone!
The focus programme Infinite Jest will revolve around surprising perspectives and alliances while offering a multi-faceted glance at our brave new medialized world. The festival considers itself as a place of exchange and artistic laboratory and in this way we are looking forward to the premiere of Emerging Artists, a programme with short, experimental works of upcoming young artists. In addition, we will explore interdisciplinary working processes at the interface of technology and arts in a workshop. The research programme XBPMMM will offer a discussion on the politics of the body from a queer feminist perspective. And at the festival’s closure, we will celebrate the dialogue between moving images, material, body, and sound via the lab performance Infinite Jest – The final of all finals reflecting the experiment. The software nota is the focus of our cooperation with IDKF, nota, SKAM, and Kunstraum 34. The award-winning works of the open call nota-n-ear will screen at the finissage at the Kunstbezirk. The festival of all festivals will certainly present the film of all films which we produced with the help of numerous casting sessions. The premiere will be celebrated at the festival opening, and the film will then be shown as an installation at the festival centre in Tagblatt-Turm-Areal.
Each year, the festival is dedicated to a specific motto, which resonates in the design, setting, special programmes, and the entire aura of the festival. This year's motto and the Filmwinter team shine in this way and proudly present: INFINITE JEST.
The time is out of joint, and we are in the middle of the bubble containing the greatest jest staging in a brave new world, in which every single event is set in scene to attract media attention, and everything turns into entertainment. The lines are blurred, and the clear distinction between truth and fiction dissolves. It gets increasingly uncertain how and for what we can position ourselves when we can't say anymore who stands for what and in which way this whole game is connected. We cannot control this self-staged jest any more, but the jest has a stranglehold over us. We become the subjects of a new smooth totalitarianism. We're amusing ourselves to death, longing for some meaning. We create new saints and heroes, but in doing that, we're just compensating for the feeling of our helplessness.
To stand our ground while looking for the right gear and the necessary skills in this fairground-like endgame, the Filmwinter has found clues in David Foster Wallace's novel "Infinite Jest". The book's plot revolves around the search for the film "Infinite Jest", which fascinates its audience in a way that they are completely mesmerized, unable to think or act. In this way, we see the Filmwinter as the ultimate weapon we want to spread in the world and Stuttgart like a virus. Therefore, we invite our artists, guests, and the audience to join in this infinite jest - with encounters, workshops, performances, and film and exhibition programmes in digital and real spaces.
(As of December 2022)
