Foreword by Gerti Tröbinger, Artistic Director

Dear audience,

It's the deadline that determines that I write my preface to this year's festival program on March 8, International Women's Day, still deeply moved after being a guest at the opening of a women's animation festival a day earlier. Deeply moved by the content of the short films shown.

Our time is challenging and sometimes disturbing. Wars, violence, hatred, destruction of nature, and other atrocities... all of these also shape the themes that female artists address in their work. Much hopelessness is palpable, but the task of art is not to provide answers but to reflect the times.

These dark themes are quite understandable when considering the roles of women in the global spiral of violence. They are the ones who give their sons for the machinations of ideologies, religious or political, who become victims of femicide and sexual violence, and yet they give birth, nurture, keep the economy and society running with comparatively lower incomes, and clear away the debris of male megalomania while embarrassingly banal debates are held about the consideration of women in German grammar.

I want to commemorate all these women using the means of language by writing the texts I myself compose in this catalog in the generic feminine. Gender stars and internal I's are omitted to avoid impairing readability. Men may feel included. So, if you stumble upon any unfamiliar formulations while reading, please think for a brief moment of one of these women who endure unspeakable suffering and pain or must give their lives because male dominance demands it.

But before you decide to avoid art altogether because the gloomy messages from the news are already too much for you, I would like to ask you to keep reading and to visit us at this year's festival anyway, because it is not only the task of art to reflect the times but also to approach them with conscious ruptures. The strongest remedy against gloom is humor. And that is certainly not lacking at our festival - quite the opposite!

So, continue reading our program, come and immerse yourself, even if only for a few hours, in a world of fantasy, wit, laughter, joy, emotion, ecstasy, and bewilderment. Walk through Wels with open eyes - you will find in the shop windows the odd doll that might bring a smile to your lips.

Visit us also at the festival center in the Minoriten and exchange your perceptions with us.

We look forward to seeing you!

Gerti Tröbinger and the Festival Team