Odense International Film Festival
OFF - Odense International Film Festival is an Academy Award-Qualifying, week-long short film festival in Denmark, taking place every year in the last week August. The festival made its debut in 1975, making OFF the eldest film festival in Denmark. The municipality of Odense is responsible for the execution of the film festival.
The festival
OFF - Odense International Film Festival offers a multitude of screenings, talks, workshops, debates, seminars, industry events and parties. The majority of the festival activities take place around BRANDTS, one of the leading art museums in Denmark presenting new and classic art alongside visual culture. All competition screenings are free and open to the public.
New festival director and revitalization
In 2009, Birgitte Weinberger took over the festival and was given a completely new role as both head of festival as well as artistic director of the festival. Prior to this, the festival had not had an actual head of festival, but instead the managerial structure had been centered around a local administrator and an artistic director. In 2009, the organizational structure was thus strengthened with a manager that was visible and active all year round. With these managerial changes came also the introduction of the artistic profile: A high-profile artistic persona from the film industry - a person who would function as an external contributor with his or hers personal angle to the festival program. Birgitte Weinberger coined the abbreviation OFF – Odense International Film Festival and in many aspects revitalized the whole concept in both content and expression.
Competition
The competition programme consists of four central competitions: Main Competition (three categories / awards), Danish Competition (two categories / awards), Animation Competition (two categories / awards) and Documentary Competition (two categories / awards). All four competitions have Academy Award-Qualifying categories. In addition to the four central competitions, OFF has a Youth Competition and a pitching contest called Pitch Me Baby. At the end of the festival, OFF presents an Audience Award to the short film in competition that receives the most audience votes during the festival. From 2019, OFF is an EFA-Qualifying short film festival. This means that one of the films in the competition programme will be given the chance to compete for a European Film Award.