INPUT 1998 - Stuttgart, Germany

From the Conference Catalogue: Dr. Hans-Geert Falkenberg, National Coordinator, Germany

"Imagine that the first INPUT conference had taken place in Baden-Baden (and not in Milan as it did). Perhaps a very different relationship would have developed between INPUT and television in Germany. Unfortunately, Südwestrundfunk's application to be the first INPUT host in 1977 was unsuccessful. In the meantime, INPUT has taken place several times in Italy, twice in both France and Spain, and once each in several European countries, not to mention that across the Atlantic the conferecne has been hosted four times in Canada, four times in the USA and once in Mexico.

This means that independent producers and directors, members of public broadcasting organizations throughout Europe and North America and, especially in the last decade, an increasing number of television professionals from other parts of the world have gained a closer, more intense relationship to INPUT. The increasing number of participants at the INPUT conference concentrating primarily on the medium's content and form - and neither on the economic obligations of a competitive marketplace nor on the manipulative power of prizes - is of ever greater value for the working process.

Perhaps this INPUT conference in Stuttgart can be a chance to highlight the inexchangeable qualities the INPUT conference has to offer to filmmakers and those responsible for television in the Federal Republic."