????Liu Minxia ????mllmx@msn.com ????BEATING more than 30,000 entries worldwide, a seven-minute-long animation directed by a Danish man was deemed the overall winner of an international short film competition that’s a highlight of the ICIF. ????“Seven Minutes in the Warsaw Ghetto,” directed by Johan Oettinger, is based on a true story and depicts a Jewish family’s life in a Warsaw ghetto in 1942. The fate of the little Jewish boy featured in the animation, a black-and-white puppet film that shows the cruelty of the time, captured the hearts of the jury for the ICIF’s Kingbonn Awards, also known as the China International New Media Shorts Festival. The jury included Hollywood screenwriter David Freeman. ????Oettinger, 28, is a self-taught director and filmmaker who has previously won about 10 international awards for his productions. He joked that he became a director because he didn’t know how to do anything else. ????“I want to make movies for kids,” Oettinger told Shenzhen Daily on Friday, after winning the Kingbonn’s top award. “I wanted to reflect how childhood was spent in ‘Seven Minutes,’ and to recall my own childhood, which I spent in the countryside.” ????The top award earned Oettinger 300,000 yuan (US$48,850). Oettinger said he will use the money to fund his next project. ????Of the 30,031 entries received from 94 countries and regions, seven other entries were awarded at the 4th China International New Media Shorts Festival, the only State-recognized international short film competition in China. Among them, Jury Award winner “The Death Row” caught much attention. ????Directed by Maryam Ebrahimi, the 13-minute-long documentary shows people’s reactions to 15 female performance artists standing in silence in mourning costumes in central Kabul, in remembrance of 15 schoolgirls who were attacked with acid in south Afghanistan because they pursued education. ????In addition to the winning productions, more than a dozen entries from Germany, Spain, France and Italy were shown in Shenzhen cinemas during the festival. ????German Nils Knoblich, director of “From Dad to Son,” said he had no regrets about not winning an award and said he had been approached at the festival by a Huayi Brothers project manager, Derek Liu, to talk about a future cooperation. | 