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There can’t, it seems, be an Oldenburg Film Festival without at least one movie by Edgar Pêra.
The Portuguese auteur has been a become a regular at the German fest, his brand of experimental, meta-cinema, typically self-financed films a perfect match for Oldenburg’s punk indie ethos. Pêra usually premieres his films at Rotterdam or Locarno but always includes an Oldenburg bow as part of the festival roll out.
His 2018 psychedelic drama Magnetick Pathways; the meta-textual literary biopic The Nothingness Club (2023) about iconic Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa; his AI-created Telepathic Letters (2024), all screened at the event in northern Germany.
He took part in the Oldenburg anthology project, One-Way Ticket to the Other Side, a series of short films from up-and-coming directors and festival alumni, each made for a budget of €100 ($110), and each inspired by a track by Belgian Cold Wave/Electro-Rock musical duo Pornographie Exclusive.
Last year, Pêra even teamed up with festival director Torsten Neumann to direct the festival trailer. Titled The Great Disillusionment, it used AI and other computer-generated VFX to transport H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds into the city of Oldenburg, complete with retro UFOs laying waste to the streets of the medieval city.
Pêra is back at Oldenburg this year with Asphalt Guerrilla, an anarchic film essay and manifesto that blends fiction, documentary, and, yes, AI sequences to examine the failed 1980s Portuguese revolutionary group the FP-25 and ideas about art as a form of resistance.
What is your most memorable Oldenburg Moment?
The cine-concert at the magnificent State Theatre [in 2024] with concept and music by Pornographie Exclusive, and 13 films by Oldenburg filmmakers. It was great to be one of them. We met in 2023 and by 2024 we had a collective concert-feature. That’s the spirit of Oldenburg!
What’s the strangest/most surprising or inspiring film (not your own) you’ve seen in Oldenburg and what’s your memory of the screening?
There are many, many different films that made me believe that there were still may cine-paths to discover. But I would choose among those, Belgian Wave, by Jérome Vandewatyne. It won the Audacity award [in 2023].
Your favorite Oldenburg spots: to eat, for a latenight drink/post screening discussion, and for a hangover recovery breakfast?
Just follow the leader! [Festival director Torsten Neumann].
As a film festival, what sets Oldenburg apart?
For starters, the winners of the awards are the ones who serve us drinks all night long [Oldenburg has a tradition that award winners must tend bar at the afterparty]. Where else could you find a festival like that? It is a place where everyone gets to know each other and you keep in touch afterwards because you have new friends, not because you did “networking.”
Why do you keep coming back?
For the friendship and comradery, mostly. And Torsten and [his wife] Deborah [Kara Unger] are like very old friends now. I feel I should pay them a visit at least once a year.
What are your dos and don’ts advice for an Oldenburg first timer?
Don’t stop partying, don’t wait for the hangover to come. You have one year to recover, after the festival is finished.
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