The International Short Film Festival takes place in Hamburg annually at the end of May – in early June and lasts a week.
The tradition of holding this film forum began in 1985, when the first festival took place, then bearing the laconic name NoBudget, which translated into Russian means «Without budget». Today, the Hamburg Short Film Festival is one of the most significant world events in the film industry. It shows about 400 films from more than 40 countries every year.
The festival's competition program includes several nominations. Section «International films» evaluates cinematic works created by creative groups from all over the world. Some of them were removed using quite a lot of equipment, so their budgets cannot be called modest. Others, on the contrary, cost their authors inexpensive – if we talk about finances, – but took a huge amount of time.
Another thing is – section «Low budget films». Here are presented exclusively those works whose cost is relatively low. In section «German films» you can see new short films from Germany, most of which were created by film school students and amateurs. And films shot in Hamburg have been shown in a separate section since 1998, which is called – «Hamburg films». The shortest films – are participants in the « section. Meet three minutes».
The winners in various categories are determined by the jury.
In addition to film screenings, the festival program includes various exhibitions, performances, concerts and discourses.
In 1998, the festival launched the « younger brother» – children's short film festival Mo&Friese, which is also held in Hamburg in June. The audience of these films is – children from four to 18 years old, but the screenings are usually attended by viewers of all ages. In addition, as part of the children's festival, seminars are organized at which children learn to make their own films.