[ecrea] "be a better being" - Call for Entries: international short film competition and festival

Call for Entries for short film competition "be a better being"!

The deadline for submissions is the 24th of June 2016.

A better being – between aspiration and pressure

ABOUT:
“When scientists are lost for words, films give the answers!” – The
project be a better being brings together filmmakers and academics in
search of a new, adequate language that helps us reflect upon questions
challenging contemporary society.

The medium of ‘film’, we believe, gives voice to those who are at the
heart of things, captures their emotions, beliefs, worries, and hopes,
as well as transmits the latter successfully to larger audiences. In
discussions with filmmakers, academics may have the chance to overcome
their disciplinary and methodological boundaries and to engage in novel
ways with ambivalence, humour, and irony. The confrontation of science
and film, we are convinced, can be tremendously beneficial to both
sides.

The Junge Akademie, in cooperation with interfilm Berlin, the Deutsche
Kinemathek, the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, and the
filmArche Berlin, invites filmmakers and academics to the Forum and
Short Film Competition be a better being.

CALL FOR ENTRIES:
‘Be a better being!’ is a phrase that is generally directed at oneself.
Its focus is the increasingly widespread drive for individual
improvement, the desire to become a “better being”. Yet what does it
mean to be a “better being”? What criteria should be usedto define such
a concept? Many of the measurements we hear about nowadays are based on
an ideal body, an ideal depth of meditation, an ideal diet, or even an
ideal stress level. The often opaque norms of apps, of self-help books,
of the marketing world produce certain concepts of what a human is or
should be. People’s readiness to apply these concepts leads us toassume
that these norms are negotiable. But is that really the case? Or is the
border between individuals’ free decision-making and social or media
pressure becoming increasingly blurred? What is the role of moral and
religious concerns in this context?

And what about the social and political components of self-improvement,
in other words: the goal of a more inclusive society, a more cohesive
commonwealth of people, social groups, and nations, particularly against
the backdrop of the current crisis of European integration and
solidarity? Or are we, as individuals, going to be submerged in a Brave
New World in which we voluntarily reveal all the relevant data about our
mental and bodily states? A world structured by the algorithms of search
engines, which is allegedly becoming ever more secure thanks to
worldwide networks of control? Control through the online community? Or
through the state? Or through the state within the state? And, finally,
what role does the young generation play in all of this?

be a better being is looking for short films that deal with these
phenomena in creative and unconventional ways. Submissions should
authentically portray the large, small, and odd aspects of the diverse
ways in which our world manifests itself as a place of actual or
imagined self-improvement, thus contributing to a dialogue between
scholars, filmmakers, and society at large.

be a better being awards a screening fee of 300,- EUR to all films
selected for screening during the Forum scheduled for November 2016. In
addition, an audience prize of 1000,- EUR will be awarded.

Starting in January 2016, more opinions and positions of scholars and
experts on be a better being will be available on the project blog
Perspectives.

REGULATIONS:
Submissions should reflect the many different facets of the topic be a
better being. All genres are permitted: from narrative films to animated
films to documentaries or experimental films. To qualify for submission,
films must have been produced in the last three years and must not
exceed 15 minutes in duration. The deadline for submissions is the 24th
of June 2016.

The films selected by the jury will be presented in mid-November 2016 at
the two-day forum be a better being and will provide the basis for
discussions between filmmakers and scholars. Some of the contributions
will be available for viewing and discussion beforehand on the online
platform www.betterbeing.info. The contributions presented online will
not necessarily be part of the competition and may include films
produced more than three years ago. More information as well as terms
and conditions can be found here >>>


Project Management: Prof. Dr. Magdalena Nowicka (Berlin) and Dr. Evelyn
Runge (Jerusalem)

Contact: (info /at/ betterbeing.info)

THE JUNGE AKADEMIE:
The Junge Akademie was founded in 2000 as the first academy in the world
specifically dedicated to promoting the next generation of outstanding
scholars. Its members stem from all academic disciplines as well as from
the arts. Through their projects, members explore the potential and
boundaries of interdisciplinary work, seek to create a dialogue between
scholarship and society, and bring fresh ideas to the discourse of
academic policy.

The Junge Akademie is co-owned by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of
Sciences and Humanities (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der
Wissenschaften – BBAW) and the German National Academy of Sciences
Leopoldina (Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina), with its
head office located in Berlin.

Call for Entries:
Online: http://www.betterbeing.info/call-for-entries/
Blog "be a better being" and "Perspectives":
http://www.betterbeing.info/
http://www.betterbeing.info/category/perspectives/
Die Junge Akademie/German Young Academy:
http://www.diejungeakademie.de/en/home/

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