Brno Int'l Competitive Festival of Short Fiction Films
Held in the second largest city of the Czech Republic, this was the 47th edition and it shows once you get there. This is a very well established festival that somehow was off my radar. They put me in the nice Hotel Continental which was quite comfortable (hey, I would've been happy anyway even if it was a youth hostel like when I went to the Berlinale Talent Campus). They had some form of social gathering every evening which was great to get to know the other filmmakers, even some actors... and that's when you get some feedback on your film. With previous shorts like Twitch and Petrina's Sixth Scent (dark comedy and full-on comedy respectively) it was easier to get a more spontaneous feedback based on laughs, but with The New Life we actually don't want people laughing and luckily it did not happen. So, apart from applause at the end, the best way to get feedback is by simply chatting to people. I think all areas of the film received compliments at some stage, from the lighting to the acting, through everything else in between, but I have to say that the Czech really liked the demons make-up because they kept talking about it all the time. Obviously, I was asked many times what the hell was the story about and how I thought of it, and I successfully managed to get people lost through the second or third line of my explanation. However, it was quite rewarding to hear the festival's translator (a Czech who lives in London and who even speaks with English accent) enthusiastically tell other people about The New Life and what the story was about. He did such a good job summing up the film that I wish he was present at any other future festivals. I saw some great films in this festival; there is probably a disproportion of presence in favour of the Central & Eastern European countries but since you rarely get to see their cinema over here, it was all good. Attending good festivals is always a humbling yet rewarding experience; inevitably you feel extremely grateful that they're showing your work together with some fantastic films (and I'm not talking of production values, since there will always be expensive films, but of ideas, stories and the creative execution of these things). For someone like me, extremely disenchanted with the feature films we get to see through our commercial circuits, it's always refreshing and inspiring to see that there are places where people care about filmmaking as opposite to showbiz. Here are some photos taken when I was there:
Held in the second largest city of the Czech Republic, this was the 47th edition and it shows once you get there. This is a very well established festival that somehow was off my radar. They put me in the nice Hotel Continental which was quite comfortable (hey, I would've been happy anyway even if it was a youth hostel like when I went to the Berlinale Talent Campus). They had some form of social gathering every evening which was great to get to know the other filmmakers, even some actors... and that's when you get some feedback on your film. With previous shorts like Twitch and Petrina's Sixth Scent (dark comedy and full-on comedy respectively) it was easier to get a more spontaneous feedback based on laughs, but with The New Life we actually don't want people laughing and luckily it did not happen. So, apart from applause at the end, the best way to get feedback is by simply chatting to people. I think all areas of the film received compliments at some stage, from the lighting to the acting, through everything else in between, but I have to say that the Czech really liked the demons make-up because they kept talking about it all the time. Obviously, I was asked many times what the hell was the story about and how I thought of it, and I successfully managed to get people lost through the second or third line of my explanation. However, it was quite rewarding to hear the festival's translator (a Czech who lives in London and who even speaks with English accent) enthusiastically tell other people about The New Life and what the story was about. He did such a good job summing up the film that I wish he was present at any other future festivals. I saw some great films in this festival; there is probably a disproportion of presence in favour of the Central & Eastern European countries but since you rarely get to see their cinema over here, it was all good. Attending good festivals is always a humbling yet rewarding experience; inevitably you feel extremely grateful that they're showing your work together with some fantastic films (and I'm not talking of production values, since there will always be expensive films, but of ideas, stories and the creative execution of these things). For someone like me, extremely disenchanted with the feature films we get to see through our commercial circuits, it's always refreshing and inspiring to see that there are places where people care about filmmaking as opposite to showbiz. Here are some photos taken when I was there: