Katharina Bayer's short film "A Provenance" is one of the 21 film productions selected for the German Competition of the 71st International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen.
In "A Provenance", the origin of 32 chess pieces exemplifies the general tragedy of Jewish collections looted by the National Socialists and their rightful owners. Using archive images, the sounds of porcelain and the ongoing search for the pieces, the film sheds light on the fate of the Gustav von Klemperer porcelain collection during the National Socialist era, which is closely linked to the Dresden State Art Collections.
Katharina Bayer was born in Gmunden, Austria, in 1987. She studied architecture at the Graz University of Technology, fine arts at the ZHdK and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently at the HGB Leipzig in the Expanded Cinema class of Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer and Mareike Bernien.
In her work, she is interested in the intersections of history, technology and cultural memory. She interweaves her interest in architectural ruins and obsolete technologies to examine their influence on the present and question the construction of history. The results are audiovisual reflections that invite viewers to examine the subtle details of his living environment.
The German Competition of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen unites independent artistic positions of all genres and is particularly appreciated by international audiences as a showcase for German short film. The Short Film Festival awards prize money totalling almost €45,000 in all competitions.