Having emerged from the international forum of new cinema in 1988, the VideoFest was held parallel to the Berlin International Film Festival for nine years. In the year of its 10th jubilee of all times, we had to reschedule the VideoFest to a later date, as a part of the financing had not been granted in time. It was also at this time that we changed the name of the festival to transmedia. And since there was no VideoFest in February ‘97, some thought it had quietly disappeared completely, and that transmedia in May was something entirely different.
We have now been able to return to the month of February and here we shall stay. We have also refined our new name further in order to bring out the festival's character more clearly.

Yet we have undergone more than mere changes of dates and names during the course of 97 / 98. A new association has taken over responsibility for the festival. For a decade, Mediopolis Berlin e.V. (formerly MedienOperative Berlin e.V.) had to endure the strain of great financial risk: year for year it pre-financed the festival with hundreds of thousands o f marks. Ultimately, however, this association was not longer able to bear the burden, as cultural-politically too little had occurred to minimize the risk. Over the years, Mediopolis invested a six-digit sum and immense energy (not to mention large-scale assistance infrastructurally), so that the VideoFest/transmediale could become what it is: one of the largest and most renowned international festivals of its kind. We would like to explicitly thank Mediopolis here for its enormous commitment. The association helped further a vision which – before the hype for new media and multimedia – was oriented toward a new form of media culture. It firmly believed that this city needed a festival which would document the change and be open to debate. In place o f all those who helped us, we would like to single out four people and thank them for their particular commitment to our idea and their support: Hartmut Horst, Matthias Behrens, Pirn Richter and Jörg Rothe.

The organization now responsible for the festival is the Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs-GmbH, whose projects include, among others, Podewil, on whose premises we now have our offices. Our work together has gotten off to an encouraging start and it will certainly enrich Berlin's media-scape: in November, we initiated with Podewil a two week event, inmedia talk/show, which presents medial products as well as discourses on media culture. A programme of diverse other events will follow. We thank Willi Großmann and Margrit Hohlfeld for getting us off to such a terrific start.

Change: a still further constituent is that for the first time we will in part be working with guest curators. The speed of developments in the field of media has been so immense that no one individual can keep an eye simultaneously on everything new in the areas of video, television and multimedia. We have decided to deal with this by delegating some areas: since we are at home on the video scene, we will provide the concept and organize the programme ourselves here; nevertheless, we will also call in experts such as Rudolf Frieling from the Mediathek of the Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe (from 1989 to 1994, a VideoFest staff member) or Andreas Heineke, programme director of the music department at MTV. Michael Klein, director of the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt, will be the curator for the multimedia section. Steven Bode and Mike Jones, from the long-standing distribution company Film and Video Umbrella in London, will compile and present the history o f computer animation for the first time ever. Thomas Beutelschmidt, who was curator of the successful exhibition Der Traum vom Sehen/The Dream of Seeing on the history of German television in Oberhausen in 1997, will supervise our section on television. For the fourth year running, Axel Bohse from Foro Artistico in Hannover will be responsible for the media art installations.

And for the first time in its history, the festival will have a motto: STOCKTAKING VISION. We shall take stock – eclectically – of where television and all the new media have gotten us so far, and what they have given us. And in 1999 we will dare an outlook: Seeing: the Future. In 2000, we intend to try out a totally new form for the festival.
Only two aspects w ill be left as they have always been: our aim for high standards, as well as our desire that festival guests and visitors are both entertained and inspired. Once more we will offer delights for the senses, barbs to the brain and productive communication.

Micky Kwella /Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek Directors

Micky Kwella Direction, Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek Direction, Micky Kwella, Susanne Jaschko, Anke Hoffmann Curators, Michael Lenz Press, Elisabeth Breitkopf Press, Jutta Franzen, Sybille Candea, Claudia Tomassini Organization, Claudia Tomassini, Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek Sponsoring, Matthias Behrens, Andreas Harder, Hannes Ickert Technical Support

Program Micky Kwella (Guidance), Susanne Jaschko (Assistant), Dr. Thomas Beutelschmidt (Television) Axel Bohse (Installations), Knut Gerwers (Video Selection)

Section Multimedia in cooperation with Institute for New Media, Frankfurt/Main, Curator: Dr. Michael Klein Computer Animations in cooperation with Film and Video Umbrella, London, Steven Bode, Mike Jones Music Videos in cooperation with MTV Germany, Andreas Heineke

Advisory Board Stefaan Decostere, Anne-Marie Duguet, John Hanhardt, Wulf Herzogenrath, Joachim Sauter

Funders: Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur, Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Europäische Kommission

Sponsors: apple, panda soft, Contrib.Net, Bankhaus Löbbecke & Co., Berliner Kindl

Supporters & partners: radioeins, Quadral The Sound Company, Schenker Eurocargo, INM Institut für Neue Media, SVV Video Vertrieb GmbH, Möbel-Hübner, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Foro Artistico, Video Vox, Mediopolis Berlin e.V.

Special thanks to Reiner Bumke and Andreas Schmid