Selection Committee

We are a handmade festival. Nothing against film scholars and professional film critics. At the big festivals, they may call the shots.

We are male and female taxi drivers. This is no empty phrase, because we have a more balanced gender ratio than some parliaments and many political parties. Besides, women and men have just as much say in our festival, no matter how many there are. How does it work? It’s quite simple: we follow the ‘central committee’ principle. Each and every one of us makes and decides as autonomously as the central committee. If one of the central committees decides that something won’t happen, then it won’t. At the Taxi Film Festival, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a dog, a man or a woman. What you say counts.

Yesterday we held a selection committee. It consisted only of taxi drivers. We unserstood a bit more why the taxi film festival is a different one. Where intellectual film festivals today only work in English, German must always be spoken at our festival as well. Many taxi drivers speak English, but some only speak German and Arabic, German and Turkish or another combination with German.

That is why there will be an introduction in German at every screening. We will provide as many German subtitles as possible and, if possible, translate them ourselves. Just because a colleague understands little English does not mean they should be excluded.

Films must speak through their visual language. We don’t want any talking heads or any works that resemble paint on a wall that you watch dry.

There are still 14 days to go before the festival begins. There is still a lot to do.