The Briefest of Encounters.
Off to the lovely Roxy in Borough last Tuesday for the launch of Encounters, the 17th Bristol International Film Festival, and determined not to sharpen my pencil despite my own short having failed to make this years’ cut, I grabbed my complimentary diet coke and took up residence in a booth determined to get a Statler or, at the very least Waldorf -like perspective on the proceedings. Unceremoniously ejected moments later, I crept into another perch and struck up a conversation with a luckier entrant whose animation had been selected, and was made aware of the equal weight animation holds with fiction and documentaries at the festival. As a life-long loather of the form –yes, I was an unusual child- I began to revise my opinion slightly when the tasters were revealed. But more of that later, as they say.
Liz Harkman, Programme Manager, made the requisite thank yous and we heard briefly that despite the recent changes in film funding with the loss of the UK Film Council and disappearance of regional development agencies, the festival still received both Arts Council support and that of SW Screen and Bristol City Council.
The Animation Programmer Kieron Argo spoke of it being a hugely successful year for animation with hundreds of entries and six themed programs showing at The Arnolfini this festival. Encounters will also host 3 Panel discussions on animation including -one with reps from UK schools such as the NFTS and RCA, and George Merilles from DreamWorks, and will showcase work from Ireland, Brazil, Bright Young Things new talent showcase and feature a session with John Krictalusi of Ren and Stimpy fame where he will introduce his Desert Island Flicks.
Mark Cosgrove, programmer at the Watershed which hosts the live action shorts this year spoke of the difficulty of whittling down the 1,800 entries to a workable programme and revealed he will host a session entitled “Missing the Masterpiece” looking at just that concern. I breathed a sigh of relief- of COURSE-that’s where my short will end up….
With a quick mention of the Bruce Robinson Master class we moved on to the main course. The jazzy musak was mercifully culled and we were treated to the fabulous festival trailer which features animated characters with TV’s for heads which play clips of some of the selected films. A clever way to introduce the nature of the programming and fun too.
Ranging from competition films to smaller budget, 35mm to dv, the standard was very high, opening as it did with Pitch Black Heist starring no less than Liam Cunningham and Michael Fassbender. Beautifully directed with a brilliant cast and clever twist on the “one last job” down on their luck, safe-crackers theme.
Animation Hurdy Gurdy was a brilliant technical exercise reproducing a day in the life of a town as a stop start animation which looked to this untutored eye as Lego land come to life. Admirable, but to what end? Humans as automatons is hardly a fresh theme, but it was engaging and beautiful to look at.
Swiftly following was another animation, La Détente. I like a bit of French but immediately thought “not more bleedin’ Lego!” Which there was. And the WW1 trenches being transformed into a theme park / Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. Again it was brilliantly done and ultimately moving as it served as a device to show a French soldiers’ way of imaginatively escaping the terror of his situation.
God View, a live action short by Billy Lumby, was a title I was familiar with-I believe it’s doing the festival rounds. But although the bird’s eye view filming is effective I think it suffers from some rather arch acting and a not wholly original premise. It’s effective without being as powerful as it should be.
The Norwegian film 15 Summers Later was a wonderful little film. Filmed in a long shot with static camera we eavesdrop on an unusual, funny and chilling encounter. Economical and effective in that wonderfully European way it, with John MacLean’s’ Heist, was my pick of the bunch.
And finally a film peopled by-well, people, but speeded up to look like animation, we
came to the final film, Luminaris from Argentina. Again it gave us factory fodder humans to start with but it developed into a truly imaginative, ecstatic fantasy of the little man getting his own Hollywood ending and very sweet it was too.
All done and dusted by 8.15, I grabbed a bit of hummus on the way out and decided a trip to Bristol might be no bad thing after all. Just pray I’m that missing masterpiece…
To Find Out More Visit Encounters Film Festival
Caroline Burns Cooke
carolinecooke@blueyonder.co.uk