For all those who take the festival title literally: it soon snowed and danced away, at least in Landsberg. The Snowdance Independent Film Festival is leaving the Upper Bavarian district town after eight years; the current edition will be the last. But they want to continue in another federal state, says festival director Tom Bohn on the phone. He doesn’t want to reveal where that will be just yet: “We’ll announce that at our award ceremony on February 5 in Landsberg,” says Bohn. The 62-year-old is a full-time director, until recently he was a member of the Landsberg city council for the FDP, and he is happy to provide information about the reasons for the move. For him, the Bavarian Corona policy is too restrictive and erratic, “much more stringent politics” is being pursued elsewhere. It’s not so much about how strict or loose the rules in the federal states are: He just has the feeling that there is “always an extra sausage” in Bavaria.
The decisive factor for him was the cancellation of the Bavarian Christmas markets two months ago, which happened at such short notice that not only the fierantes got into great trouble. “So I said, that’s enough, we’re leaving,” said Bohn. The festival boss is a combative fellow, he writes articles, blogs and is active on Twitter. Last year he was one of the co-organizers of the actors’ campaign “Allesdichtmachen”, which criticized the state corona measures. There was a lot of criticism for this, but Tom Bohn continued. Today he tweets about populists, panic-mongers in parliament and the latest decisions by the state government: “Bavaria will raise the capacity limit from 25 percent to 50 percent at events from Thursday,” he just wrote – and referred to the start of his festival on Saturday.
Tom Bohn was born in Wuppertal in 1959. The director, author and festival director initiated the first edition of Snowdance 2015 together with Heiner Lauterbach.
(Photo: Bernd Brundert)
Snowdance can therefore take place with an audience, the 14 feature films and 24 short films will be shown in the Landsberger Stadttheater. At the same time, you can stream the films, and other cultural organizers also rely on the so-called hybrid concept. Last year, however, the festival only took place online. Bohn believes that events like this thrive on exchange and encounters, on dialogue between filmmakers and the audience. He did not receive any state funding, Snowdance is financed by sponsors and entrance fees or streaming fees. Nobody would be interested in independent festivals, he looked for a conversation in various places, but not much happened there. “Last year we paid a massive price,” he admits, “that was at least forty or fifty thousand euros lousy.”
Bureaucracy eats up funding
He is also attacking the Film-Fernseh-Fonds Bayern (FFF), which is responsible for promoting Bavarian film festivals. Asked at the FFF, the matter sounds a little different: Snowdance had submitted applications for funding, and it was also recommended for funding in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Confronted with this, Bohn replies that that’s true, but the small amount of funding was disproportionate to the conditions and the effort involved. That’s why it was waived. “No application was made for 2022; no discussion was sought with the FFF about the planning of this year’s or future Snowdance film festivals,” the FFF further states. One very much regrets the intention to move, “since the festival with its content orientation is unique in Bavaria”.
What the films shown there have in common is that they were produced independently. But that’s also the case elsewhere, it’s not a unique selling point. The uniqueness is more evident in the atmosphere, the short distances or the supporting events. This year’s program also includes a production directly related to the venue: “Hitler’s Mein Kampf: Prelude to the Holocaust” has its starting point in Landsberg; Adolf Hitler was imprisoned here in 1923 and 1924. The US documentary can be seen as a world premiere, other films have already been shown at other festivals: The German climate activist documentary “Barrikade – Bilder eines Waldbesetz” has already been in Hof, the French opening film “Medusa” has also been invited to other international independent festivals . A Japanese documentary (“Magone”) accompanies a glass artist through Venice, a German horror film (“In The Woods”) leads a father and his daughter into the forest.
A victim of Bavarian cultural policy in Corona times? In any case, the organizer of the Snowdance Film Festival is taking action. He shows the film “Barricade” and goes to the barricades himself: under protest, he leaves Bavaria with his festival and bids farewell to Landsberg as the organizer.
(Photo: Snowdance Festival)
Tom Bohn is satisfied with his last Landsberg vintage, he praises the professionalism of the films. An incredible amount has happened, he says, new market structures are currently being created for independent films. He also sees himself as an independent filmmaker, he regularly shoots “Tatort” episodes, but also realizes his own projects in between, such as “Black Wedding” or “Reality XL”. If it turns out, he will continue to work as a director in Bavaria. He also feels comfortable here as a private person. “But as an organizer, I don’t do anything here anymore.”
Snowdance Independent Film Festival, Sat., Jan. 29 to Sun., Feb. 6, Stadttheater Landsberg am Lech, www.snowdance.net