Axel Behrens has been active in the short film scene since 1986, as a producer, programmer, curator, distributor, and archivist.
Axel Behrens
Axel Behrens participated in “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025, a first-ever poll of its kind as a collective love letter to the art of short-form moving image. yanco and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, in collaboration with Talking Shorts, invited filmmakers, curators, distributors, critics, and scholars worldwide to nominate 10 audiovisual works under sixty minutes that they personally consider the “greatest” of all time. This was Axel Behrens’s submission:
below you'll find my very personally selection from the past 50 years of working with the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg and Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg
— Axel Behrens| Movie | Original Title | Director | Country | Year | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kristoball | Arild Kristo | Norway | 1968 | 11’ | ||
amazing what he has done with found footage |
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| New Book Nova Ksiazka | Zbgigniew Rybczynski | Poland | 1976 | 10’ | ||
split screen at its best |
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| Isle of Flowers Ilha das Flores | Jorge Furtado | Brazil | 1989 | 13’ | ||
still highly relevant |
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| Pièce touchée | Marin Arnold | Austria | 1989 | 16’ | ||
18 seconds out of a Hollywoodfilm—back and forward in 16 minutes. Fantastic. |
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| Apologies | Anne Charlotte Robertson | USA | 1990 | 17’ | ||
Anne Charlotte Robertson is the queen of super 8 film diaries and this film still makes me cry. |
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| World of Glory Härlig är jorden | Roy Andersson | Sweden | 1991 | 17’ | ||
Roy Andersson's approach to translating current issues into film has fascinated me ever since ‘World of Glory’. |
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| The Death Train | Bill Morrison | USA | 1993 | 17’ | ||
The history of film in 17 minutes—a masterpiece. |
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| Consolation Service Lohdutusseremonia | Eija-Liisa Ahtila | Finland | 1999 | 24’ | ||
I have been fascinated by Eija-Liisa Ahtila's cinematic work since 1992, and I am always captivated by ‘Consolation Service’. |
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| Fisticuffs | Miranda Pennell | United Kingdom | 2004 | 11’ | ||
an excellent choreography between brawling and dancing in a Britsh pub—always delights me. |
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| The Little Team L’Èquipe petit | Roger Gómez, Dani Resines | Spain | 2011 | 11’ | ||
hard warming and a wonderful film about football, not only for children |
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