Ulrich Wegenast steps down as director of the Stuttgart Animated Film Festival.
Before there were “living photographs,” as the first films were enthusiastically called, there was animation. This is where the real magic began, and it continues to fascinate people to this day. The fact that animated film is celebrated every year in Stuttgart, the second most important festival in the world after Annecy, is largely due to Ulrich Wegenast. The fact that he is now known to be retiring after 17 years is a heavy blow to German film culture. For the people of Stuttgart, the bad news follows a catastrophe that was only just averted: the threatening conversion of the Metropol festival cinema, a traditional house from the silent film days, into a climbing hall. An adequate successor to Wegenast will be difficult to find.
Born in 1966, the historian and art historian – and passionate drummer – completed postgraduate studies in culture and media management at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin. In 1987, as a student, he co-founded the still existing experimental film festival, Stuttgarter Filmwinter. So he effortlessly combined the creative with the economic – areas that often work in opposite directions, for which other festivals have to hire dual directors.
Top spot for Germany
In 2003, Wegenast took over the management of the International Festival of Animated Film from its visionary founder Albrecht Ade. Cultural and economic policies played into each other’s hands at a historically rare moment. In fact, today’s animated films regularly occupy top positions in the weak foreign market for German cinema.
As an economic factor, animation is omnipresent today – from gaming to user interfaces or imaging processes in science. Culturally, however, Germany still struggles with the art form that brought forth pioneers such as Lotte Reiniger, Walter Ruttmann and Oskar Fischinger. Ulrich Wegenast was able to reconcile the different contexts – media scientists speak of dispositifs – like no other.
It is one of the tragic ironies of the festival boom that the actual management quality, the talent for film communication, seems to be less and less in demand. We are looking for managers who take a backseat to cultural content in general compared to economics and media effectiveness. Wegenast managed all these areas lightly – and promoted the reputation of animated film in Germany like hardly anyone else. As the Film- und Medienfestival gGmbH announced on Wednesday, Wegenast is leaving society for new professional challenges.
