ANIMATED BEYOND
Animation Films from Germany

Thursday, Nov. 5th 7PM
The Goethe Institut, Boston
170 Beacon Street
Boston

RPM Festival and the Goethe Institut, Boston co-present a special screening program, Animated Beyond: animation films from Germany.

ANIMATED BEYOND presents a selection of remarkable animated and experimental films that demonstrate how far animation can move beyond its classical boundaries. The films come from different periods of the 21st century and combine various animation techniques with social, political, personal, and historical questions.

From computer-animated figures and digital image worlds to drawing, object and puppet animation, animated documentary, rotoscoping, and video collage, the program unfolds a diverse panorama of German animation. Animation is understood not merely as a technique, but as a distinctive cinematic form that can distort reality, make inner states visible, and critically reflect on social developments.

The films move between humor and absurdity, personal memory and collective history, political reality and surreal image worlds. Animals become stand-ins for human conflicts, historical experiences are transformed into surreal images, and familiar figures from popular culture appear in an increasingly commercialized and contradictory present.

Several films in the program have received major German and international short-film awards, including the German Short Film Award, the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, the Short Tiger, the Golden Horseman of Filmfest Dresden, and awards from the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. The program thus also highlights the distinctive and internationally recognized position of German animation within contemporary short film.
Curated by Zhou Fei.

About the Program

ANIMATED BEYOND demonstrates that animation is far more than the creation of moving drawings or digital figures. It can make social conflicts visible, reconstruct memories, distort political reality, depict psychological states, and subject familiar images from our culture to critical re-examination.
The eight films trace a chronological and aesthetic development: from Daniel Nocke’s biting 3D animation No Place for Gerold and David O’Reilly’s internationally acclaimed digital relationship comedy Please Say Something to the experimental, documentary, and collage-based works of Susann Maria Hempel, Katharina Huber, Ulu Braun, and Mariola Brillowska.
A particularly clear development in German animation of the 21st century is the increasing permeability of the boundaries between animation, documentary film, experimental film, visual art, and video collage. Animation becomes an independent artistic language—a language that not only creates another reality, but also makes the reality in which we live newly visible.

Zhou Fei is a media artist and experimental filmmaker. She studied sculpture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and later pursued studies in new media and experimental film at the Braunschweig School of Art.
Her artistic practice operates at the intersection of interactive media art, experimental film, installation, and performance. Her works explore the relationship between human beings, space, and society, combining social, cultural, and urban questions with experimental visual and narrative forms. Central to her practice is the investigation of space as an aesthetic, social, and media-based construction. By merging real and virtual modes of representation, she develops non-linear narratives and employs interactive and immersive formats to restructure perception and experience. Zhou Fei has realized numerous interdisciplinary projects addressing themes such as migration, identity, and processes of social transformation, often incorporating participatory and collaborative approaches. Her works have been presented internationally, including at the European Media Art Festival, the Mönchehaus Museum Goslar, and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. She has received several awards and grants, including the Kaiserring Scholarship, the Digital New Art Award, and the Sparda Bank Foundation Art Prize.
Alongside her artistic practice, Zhou Fei also works as a curator, jury member, and program coordinator for international film festivals, including the up-and-coming International Film Festival and the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen.

No Place for Gerold
Kein Platz für Gerold
Daniel Nocke
| Germany | 2006 | 5:00 min. | 3D animation

In a shared apartment, an uncomfortable conversation takes place: Gerold the crocodile is supposed to move out. His roommates—a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, and a wildebeest—are not quite sure how to break the news to him gently. What initially appears to be an ordinary roommate conflict develops into a biting and absurd confrontation about living together, belonging, and exclusion.
With dry humor and precise timing, Daniel Nocke transforms an everyday social situation into a grotesque animal world. The animals function as mirrors of human behavior and social conflicts.

Awards:
German Short Film Award / Short Tiger 2006 – Best Animated Film
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation 2007 – Murnau Short Film Award
FBW 2006

Daniel Nocke (born 1968 in Hamburg, Germany) is a German screenwriter, director and animation filmmaker. He studied screenwriting and animation at the Film Academy Baden Württemberg from 1994 to 1999. Early short films such as Der Peitschenmeister and Die Trösterkrise established his signature style: sharp dialogue, dry humour and precise social observation.

Please Say Something
David O’Reilly
| Germany | 2009 | 10:00 min. | computer animation

In a distant future, David O’Reilly tells, in short fragmented episodes, the story of a complicated relationship between a highly emotional cat and a rather lost mouse. What initially appears to be an absurd variation on a classic animal story develops into a melancholic yet comic reflection on love, communication, dependency, and loneliness in the digital age.
The minimalist figures and radically reduced visual language stand in striking contrast to the emotionally charged dialogue. The relationship between cat and mouse becomes a mirror of human partnerships and their difficulties in communicating.

Awards:
Berlinale 2009 – Golden Bear, Best Short Film
German Short Film Award 2009 – Gold, Animation
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2009 – Best German Film
Kurzfilmtage Winterthur 2009 – Main Prize
DOK Leipzig 2009 – Silver Dove, Best Animated Film
Cartoon d’Or 2009
Annecy 2009 – Special Distinction
Fantoche 2009 – High Risk Award

David O'Reilly (born 1985 in Kilkenny, Ireland) is an Irish artist, filmmaker and game developer based in Los Angeles. Known for his distinctive low poly aesthetic and experimental storytelling, he gained international recognition with Please Say Something and The External World. He has contributed animation to Adventure Time, Son of Rambow and Spike Jonze’s Her. His game , Everything, received critical acclaim.

The Natural Death of a Mouse / Der natürliche Tod der Maus
Katharina Huber
| Germany | 2020 | approx. 21:30 min. | experimental animation

Katharina Huber’s collage-like animated film follows Anna, a young woman torn between a desire for spiritual and moral self-optimization and doubts about its meaning.
On some days, she imagines that she can make parts of the bodies of people she considers evil disappear through her thoughts alone. On other days, all things appear beautiful to her. Memories, fantasies, and everyday observations merge into a peculiar world in which personal moral convictions, spirituality, and the question of individual responsibility collide.
The film combines humor, absurdity, and social criticism while also asking how much change can be expected from individual self-optimization.

Awards:
German Short Film Award 2020 – German Short Film Award, Animation
Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg 2021 – Jury Prize
28. blicke – Film Festival of the Ruhr Region – aus-blicke Prize

Katharina Huber (born 1985 in Saint Petersburg) is a German filmmaker and animation artist. She studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and later at the Royal College of Art in London. In 2014 she co founded Studio Huber Casalprim. Her debut feature A Good Place premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2023 and received several awards. She lives and works in Cologne.