2023-10-01 11:14:28
By Maria Motter
For Lisa Kainz and Sophia Hochedlinger, it is their first Youki as a managing duo, the Youki itself is turning 25. And this time there are 25 young people who are running the fantastically friendly and international youth media festival together.
The team from the international youth media festival Youki has already spent a whole week in the cinema working with chief curator Martina Ganetti to select which of the submitted films will be shown in the competition. All films in the international competition come from 13 to 27 year olds from 34 countries. 900 submissions from 90(!) countries reached Youki this year.
Leah Hochedlinger
Lisa Kainz and Sophia Hochedlinger run it Youki.
The Youki shows animated films, feature films and documentaries, as well as music videos and essays. “They are funny, creative, crazy, sensitive and courageous films, but also serious ones: searching, questioning and calling, they are dedicated to both the little things and the big questions of our time,” says Sophie Hochedlinger, summarizing the super-dense program. She is a filmmaker herself and was represented at Youki last year with her own film.
When it comes to the length of the films, Youki is absolutely in tune with the times: the shortest film is a few seconds of moving images and the longest short film lasts 20 minutes. This leaves plenty of time for Q&As with the filmmakers and for exchanges.
Maciej Muller
What happens when the crush is back at school and a girl notices that she really likes metal objects, says Pawel Golonko in “Metal Girl”.
Queer and young – lots of coming-of-age films
The 79 films of the 15th Youki Festival will be shown in 10 programs and all films will have English subtitles. The Youki team immediately noticed that many films this year were regarding queer life. And so the genre classic coming-of-age is enriched with LGBT+ experiences. The Youki program reflects this strong interest. It’s regarding love and friendship, solidarity and the realities of young people’s lives.
There are courageous discussions in front of the lockers like in “Metal Girl” and icy paths like in the film that thrilled the projectionist Andi Eli so much that there is now a Youki Special there is also: “Stop Zemlia” by the Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai is regarding the shy Masha and her graduating class in Kyiv, self-harm and social media also appear. The Youki added trigger warnings to the films for the first time. There are a lot of stories in “Stop Zemlia,” and the director joked at the Berlinale that it was a boring film regarding teenagers. Clearly, “Stop Zemlia” is anything but boring. Kateryna Gornostai filmed with young people who were acting for the first time. “We had 25 people in the frame,” said Kateryna Gornostai.
Oleksandr Roshchyn
An entire graduating class in front of the camera: In “Stop Zemlia” by Kateryna Gornostai, Ukrainian teenagers contributed their own stories.
The festival program for streaming
Speaking of youth rooms: the festival center is the Welser Media Culture House and this time youki is also celebrating itself. And rightly so, because it is the 25th anniversary and the “Youki Youth Room” is an exhibition on the history of the festival. With special highlights such as KaraYOUKI, the Youki Karaoke Party and workshops, this will be a birthday cake affair.
This is guaranteed to be another highlight Youki Workshop for writing regarding film with Bianca Jasmina Rauch and Patrick Holzapfel by Youth without film”. If you want to be there, please register quickly.
Entrance to the cinema at Youki is free for everyone under 18 years of age. The international competition is in Wels arthouse cinema and live streams of the film programs are also available online during the festival days DORFTV and up OCTO.
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