The anniversary edition of the festival boasting the oldest short film competition in the world takes place in Oberhausen from 1 to 6 May, while visitors will have a chance to see 117 films from 36 countries in different competition programmes. This also includes a Croatian short – Ivan Faktor’s experimental documentary Pain, selected to appear in the International Competition.

Pain had its world premiere earlier this year, at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

After receiving his diagnosis and battling the initial fear of illness progression, Ivan Faktor decided to visualise his condition living with Parkinson’s disease using the camera on his phone. After 50 years of filmmaking, his passion for art and life is still unchanged. He films himself, his wife, their yard, the street, his studio, and most of all, the light installations at his home. Faktor captures the everyday, but disrupts the daily structure by intervening in reality with light attractions or optical obstacles such as his own trembling fingers. Through interventions into documentary situations, he creates a captivating inner world of an artist confined in space.

Faktor wrote, directed and shot the film. Sound and image editing was done by Damir Čučić. Assistant editor was Marta Bregeš, while assistant cinematographer was Aleksandar Muharemović. Visual effects were done by Marinko Marinkić, while sound design and mix were done by Krešimir Šušljek. The film’s producer is Jelena Duh, for production company “Sve gore i gore”.

The full programme of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen will be announced in the upcoming days. More details are available on the official festival website.