The festival programme is divided into four competition programmes, International Competition, German Competition, NRW Competition screening films made in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, and a music video programme entitled MuVi. There are 60 film entries from around 40 world countries competing in the International Competition, the largest and oldest festival programme, this year entitled Looking Beyond Europe. The largest number of international competition entries comes from non-European countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam, which provides a rare insight into the film production that finds it harder to reach international festivals and fairs.

Branka Benčić is the curator of the side programme CINEMANIAC at the Pula Film Festival, focusing on the presentation of experimental film, video, art films and multimedia installations, founded in 2002. She has also curated around 30 group exhibition and video programmes.

In addition to Branka Benčić, the international competition jury consists of the famed Austrian director Michael Glawogger (Vienna), American director and curator William E. Jones (Los Angeles), South African curator Joan Legalamitlwa (Cape Town) and Sari Volanen, editor at the national television of Finland YLE (Helsinki).

The Oberhausen Festival is the oldest short film festival in the world, launched in 1954. Great masters of world film such as Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Roman Polanski, Alain Resnais, George Lucas and many others have presented their works at this important festival.