Between today and tomorrow

Campus Future - that was the theme of this year's short film competition "Spontaneously Done". Eleven diverse, creative entries gave an insight into the ideas and visions of the students at their premiere in Casablanca.

Shoot, edit, submit in less than 57 hours - that's the idea behind the "Spontan getan!" short film competition. Since 2021, it has been organised by the Studierendenwerk Oldenburg, the AStA and the university cinema Gegenlicht together with changing project partners - based on a concept from the Oldenburg short film festival Zwergwerk. The university was a co-organiser for the first time in its anniversary year.
It was only on the Friday afternoon of the competition weekend at the end of April that the registered teams were informed of this year's theme by email: Campus Future. Another challenge was to incorporate three elements - a rucksack, the number 50 and new paths - into the film, which had to be no longer than five minutes.

What all participants could look forward to: A premiere evening in the Casablanca cinema, hosted by Jürgen Boese, Head of the Cultural Office of the Studierendenwerk, and Arne Goerlitz, Cultural Officer of the AStA. This showed how creative, diverse and sometimes extremely technically adept the students were at realising the requirements of the competition. The tone of the films fluctuated between entertaining and cynical, optimistic and dystopian. What became clear in the overall view: A positive view of the future can be difficult given the challenges of the present.

However, a journey into the past can provide new perspectives: the collective_13AB, consisting of Eliza Heying, Jule Winnes, Sarah Fittje-Deditius and Joshua Stolle, won over the jury with their experimental entry "The Manifesto". In it, the students of cultural and social sciences explore the idea and aspirations of university start-ups. What particularly impressed the jury - Petra Löffler, Professor of Theory and History of Contemporary Media, Antonia Schepers from the university cinema Gegenlicht and Nele Claus, Social Media Manager at the university - was the aesthetics of the film, which combines various film techniques such as stop-motion or futuristic animations with fragmentary sound snippets and text elements, thus offering scope for a variety of interpretations and a critical examination of the history and future of the university.