On 17 February, the Fair Festival Award was presented by the United Services Union (ver.di). This was the second time that IFFF Dortmund+K\u00f6ln was honoured as a fair festival. The award ceremony took place during the Berlinale as part of the AG Kurzfilm short film reception. This is the third time the union has awarded the prize.<\/p>\n
\u2018With the Fair Festival Award, we want to highlight fair conditions in the festival industry and publicise structural problems,\u2019 says ver.di Federal Executive Board member Christoph Schmitz-Dethlefsen. ver.di conducted a survey among festival employees. It was clear that the participants were predominantly female and had a high level of education. \u2018Nevertheless, they are rarely employed on a permanent or unlimited basis. In particular, pay, which is also a consequence of insufficient funding for the festivals, is only considered fair by 32 per cent of those surveyed. Almost 70 per cent of festival employees are without a permanent position and cannot live from their festival work all year round and many have to finance their livelihood through other jobs,\u2019 says Schmitz-Dethlefsen.<\/p>\n
The Hamburg Short Film Festival was honoured with the Fair Festival Award. In addition to the IFFF Dortmund+Cologne, other festivals also received the Fair Festival Award: abgedreht! – Hamburg’s Young Film, the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, the Braunschweig International Film Festival and DOK.fest Munich.<\/p>\n
For the assessment, all festival employees in Germany were asked to rate the festivals at which they worked. In two nationwide ver.di surveys, fairness was assessed in the following categories: Working conditions, employment contract, communication, leadership & working atmosphere, co-determination, equal opportunities & equal treatment, remuneration and transparency.<\/p>\n