The tension between the real and the imagined runs throughout the European Music Video Competition. Personal memories and lived experiences intertwine with the shadows of war, political resistance, queer joy and the noise of the digital age. Lingering long takes give way to breathless editing, meticulously handcrafted worlds merge with digital imagery and typographic experiments, and classical storytelling exists alongside pure abstraction. Here, the avant-garde and popular culture do not stand in opposition but actively feed one another.

The inaugural OMVF European Music Video Competition was open to productions made in EU and EEA countries, as well as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Georgia and Ukraine. A total of 161 music videos were submitted, of which 14 were selected for the competition.The winner will receive the Europumpeli Award along with a pair of Genelec 8351B SAM™ studio monitors, donated by Genelec. The competition is part of the official programme of Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture.

Jury consists of:

Ben Russell (b. 1976, United States) is an artist, filmmaker, and curator based in Marseille. His work is located at the intersection of experimental cinema, visual anthropology, and documentary images. He has exhibited at documenta 14 (2017) and his work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, and Tate Modern, as well as in prestigious festivals, including the Mostra in Venice and the Berlinale. At the same time, he pursues curatorial activity with projects such as Magic Lantern (Providence, RI, USA, 2005–07), BEN RUSSELL (Chicago, USA, 2009–11), Hallucinations (Athens, Greece, 2017), and Double Vision(Marseille, France, 2024–).

Ksenia Kaverina (b. 1988) is a curator and cultural professional who has worked for more than a decade across contemporary art, design and visual culture in museum, university and independent contexts in Finland. She has worked as a curator and producer of art and design exhibitions, as well as a researcher and project manager. Kaverina holds a Master's degree in Curating, Managing and Mediating Art from Aalto University and is a co-editor of Falling In: Movement and Becoming in Curatorial Research (Frame & Mousse Publishing, 2024).

Kaisa Karvinen (b. 1988) is an architect, curator and researcher. She is one of the founders of the Trojan Horse collective and has worked as a curator at the Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design. Karvinen is the curator of the Pavilion of Finland at the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale and the Nordic Countries Pavilion at the 2025 Biennale. She holds a Master's degree in Architecture from Aalto University and a Master of Research in Art and Design from Sint Lucas School of Arts in Antwerp. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Oulu.