Oldenburg International Film Festival

August 28, 2008 When Torsten Neumann and Thorsten Ritter started the Oldenburg International Film Festival on four screens in 1994, they had no idea that over the course of the next 14 years they would turn a high-security prison into a screening venue, have a filmmaker flown in at the last minute via single-engine plane, and witness their little venture being labeled the German Sundance by an increasingly curious trade press. Oldenburg hit the ground running, with legendary independents like Alex Cox (1984's "Repo Man") and Nancy Savoca (1989's "True Love") showing up for the festival's inaugural, where they screened about 70 films -- a number that has remained relatively constant since its inception. Rather than make radical changes, Neumann concentrated on what was already working: young independent filmmakers surrounded by indie legends from Hollywood and Europe, awards for unheralded filmmakers, and a slew of original events to fuel Oldenburg's offbeat vibe.

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