Street life and fairytale experience

InBanyorama - a VR experience of life on the street (45,000 euros, Curious Company, Hamburg), users take on the role of a homeless person and go through an exemplary daily routine with various tasks and challenges. Directors Henning Westerwelle and the team from the Hamburg-based non-profit organisation GoBanyo are behind the project. The aim of the interactive 3D experience is to create understanding and thus sensitisation for dealing with people on the street. A version for VR glasses is currently being planned, which can also be used in accompanying formats such as workshops. The script is being co-written by Dominik Bloh.

Further prototype funding is available for the interactive media art projectTerra Media (40,000 euros, multicArts, Kiel) by Pola Rader and Eugenia Bakurin. The two Kiel-based filmmakers take young viewers into the fairytale world of the firebird, which is brought to life with its stories in two multimedia rooms. The project enables children to experience the world of media art as creatively as possible and encourages them to reflect on media content.

Fundings in the area of concept development go to the VR projectHaunted Healing (20,000 euros, Fabian&Fred, Hamburg) by Danish Director Maria Engermann. The social VR experience follows a 13-year-old girl through various stages of grief after the death of her father. The Hamburg-based company Fabian&Fred is involved as the animation studio and German co-producer. Script Writer is Rita Martinos.

In addition to the three VR projects mentioned above, two short films were also funded in March: In the music filmTransforming Connection (32,500 euros, SEOI Collective, Hamburg), Directors, Script Writer and HFBK Hamburg graduate Jasmin Luu tells the story of a friendship between two women from their first meeting to adulthood. The short film will have four shooting days in Hamburg and one shooting day in Schleswig-Holstein. For her film, Martina Fluck from Schleswig-Holstein receivesHugo Hercules & The Wild West (Yucca Filmproduktion, Heide) Fundings totalling 22,500 euros. Together with the Kiel comic artist Tim Eckhorst, she is following in the footsteps of the artist Wilhelm Heinrich Detlev Koerner, who was born in Dithmarschen in 1878 and later became a superhero comic pioneer and famous Western painter in the USA.

The "Kurz + Innovativ" Committee promotes both short films and innovative audiovisual formats, from XR experiences and 360-degree films to immersive story worlds.

A detailed overview of all funded projects can be found here.

The funding decisions were made on 24 March 2022 by Sophia Ayissi Nsegue , Ingo Mertins, Britta Schewe, Insa Wiese, Ralph Heinsohn and Arne Sommer.