The International Random Film Festival is the first

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

in the world which celebrates

randomness In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual rand ...

in cinema. Out of the submission 25 films are selected to compete each year. The festival is organized annually in a randomly selected location, on a random opening date. Awards are given out randomly.

History

The concept for the festival started as a breakfast-idea one summer morning in 2009 by Hannaleena Hauru (a filmmaker from Finland) and Synes Elischka (a media artist from Austria) – as a critique to the world wide short film festival network. The founders decided to start a film festival that gives an equal possibility to all the filmmakers to have their film screened internationally. The theoretical basis is to deconstruct the concept of a competition in quality. The first edition for the festival in 2010 was promoted only by a

Facebook group Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of t ...

. The festival website has been running since April 2011.

Venues

* 2010: 1st edition,

Wiesensteig Wiesensteig is a town in the district of Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is located on the river Fils, 16 km south of Göppingen. Geography Geographical location Wiesensteig is located in the upper Fils valley ...

, Germany, February 2010 * 2011: 2nd edition, Bór Zapilski, Poland, July 2011 * 2012: 3rd edition,

Anija Anija (german: Hanniecken) is a village in Anija Parish, Harju County in northern Estonia. It has a population of 128 (as of 1 January 2010). Anija was first mentioned in 1241 as ''Hangægus'' village in the Danish Census Book. Anija Manor A ma ...

, Estonia, March 2012 * 2013: 4th edition,

Garpenberg Garpenberg is a locality situated in Hedemora Municipality, Dalarna County, Sweden with 518 inhabitants in 2010. ''Hedemora and Garpenberg Court District'', or ''Hedemora och Garpenbergs tingslag'', was a district of Dalarna in Sweden. The court ...

, Sweden, December 2013 (opening night at ''Sagateatern'' in

Hedemora Hedemora is a town in Dalarna County and the seat of Hedemora Municipality, Sweden, with 7,273 inhabitants in 2010. Despite its small population, Hedemora is for historical reasons normally still referred to as a ''city'', and as such the oldest ...

) * 2014: 5th edition, Gdynia, Poland, November 2014 * 2017: 6th edition,

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, Finland, May 2017 (replacing the originally selected venue Al Hofuf, Saudi Arabia) Every year the festival takes place on a randomly selected time, in a random venue. The location is selected by opening wikipedia.org and clicking Random article repeatedly, until reaching a page representing a place with a local population. The random selection method
are documented
on the website. The date of the Festivals Opening Night is selected by using the True Random Number Generator at

random.org Random.org (stylized as RANDOM.ORG) is a website that produces random numbers based on atmospheric noise. In addition to generating random numbers in a specified range and subject to a specified probability distribution, which is the most commo ...

. File:IRFF Crew 1.jpg, Organizers 2013 File:IRFF Saga entrance.jpg, Opening night 2013 File:IRFF Saga window.jpg, Storefront at opening night 2013

External links

{{commons category

International Random Film Festival official website

Article in

Hufvudstadsbladet ''Hufvudstadsbladet'' (abbr. ''Hbl'') is the highest-circulation Swedish-language newspaper in Finland. Its headquarters is located in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The name of the newspaper translates approximately into "Journal of the Capi ...

about the founder Hannaleena Hauru, and the 2nd Edition of the Festival in Bór Zapilski, Poland.

Article about the festival's 2nd edition in Poland in onet.pl.

Article and TV-spot on Television Silesia TVS, Poland.

Radio Interview on Polskie Radio about the Random Film Festival, 10 July 2011.

Article about the IRFF on

Papo de Homem Papo is a surname and a masculine given name and nickname. It may refer to: Surname * Eliezer Papo (1785–1828), rabbi and writer in the Ottoman Empire * Hope Papo, South African politician * Izidor Papo (1913–1996), Austro-Hungarian surgeo ...

, a large online portal in Brasil, posted Jan. 8th 2012.

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Article placing IRFF at #5 of the world's weirdest film festivals, posted Apr. 16th 2012.

Article in the Regional Newspaper dt.se about the Random Film Festival in Garpenberg, Sweden, posted Oct. 25th 2013. Annual events Film festivals in Germany Film festivals in Poland Film festivals in Sweden Short film festivals 2010 establishments in Germany Film festivals established in 2010 Randomness