Fresh Film Festival International Short Films Programme
Fresh Film Festival International Short Films Programme
Tuesday, 27th of March, 10.30am, Lime Tree Theatre, Mary Immaculate College
This year’s Fresh Film Festival International Short Films programme was broken up into two selections of films: the first six films were the Fresh Film Festival audience selection and the second part was eleven films from the Four River Film Festival Croatia.
The first session was introduced by Leonie Kerins, Coordinator of Doras Luimní – a group that helps migrants in Limerick. She began by expressing her pleasure at being asked to open this session and spoke a little bit about her organisation which began as a development group that helped asylum seekers and refugees. She explained to the audience of secondary school students the value of watching these kinds of international films and for Leonie these films presented a golden opportunity for students to gain a better understanding of other people’s cultures. It should also allow them the opportunity of identifying the similarities of and differences between each other.
The first session was Fresh’s own audience selection and was a great mix of documentary, colourful animation, comedic drama and romance. My personal favourites in this group were:
Behind the Tents – Jude S. Chehab
Documentary 13:21 mins, Lebanon
This thoughtful documentary shows the life, hopes, dreams and aspirations of the children living behind the tents.
It was a thought provoking piece that showed vox-pops of children who live in these vast tented areas in the Lebanon and how as migrant workers their dreams and aspirations are not unlike other children. It was filmed in a colourful and light-hearted way, yet the underlying message was that many of their dreams would never be realised.
Der Präzise Peter – Martin Schmidt
Animation 5:22 mins, Germany
Precise Peter tries to instruct his mischievous young son on the subtleties of the family ritual.
This was a colourful and non-dialogue animation and the audience loved it. It depicted a poor father’s frustration at his son’s lack of co-ordination and table manners and was extremely well done.
The Four River Film Festival Selection – Karlovac, Croatia
This selection from the Four River Film Festival in Karlovac, Croatia was introduced by Svjetlana and Nina. They spoke about their festival which is open to young filmmakers aged between 14 – 20 years (high school students), which takes place in September 2012. They explained that their festival has a different theme every year and this year it was ‘chemistry’. Both girls stressed that there was a great atmosphere at their festival which was due to the fact that they didn’t just show films but that there are also concerts and other activities taking place around the festival. They wanted everyone in the audience to consider entering the festival and to enjoy the selection of films they had brought with them.
The selection on offer was some of the award-winning films from the festival. They consisted of the best animated, documentary, live action film, freestyle, and an audience award. There were also films that won the awards for ‘contribution to non-violence on film’ and the ‘grand prix for the best film’. It was a very interesting and mixed group.
Those worth special mention were:
1000 Cranes
Jan Fantov – Foto Kino Video Klub Zaprešić
This film won Best Animated film of the 16th Youth Film Festival
According to an old Japanese belief, a wish is to be granted to a person who has made a thousand origami cranes.
This was a fantastic non-dialogue stop-motion animation and while quite gothic in its starkness it was very moving. It used a mixture of styles of animation: model and paper pictures on a simple set. It was beautifully made and produced wonderful imagery.
Save it for the morning after – Luksuz Produkcija. DZMP,Krško,Slovenia.
Best Documentary of the 4th Four River Film Festival
Different people speak about their dreams.
This short used the medium of film to illustrate people’s dreams. This was achieved using clever ways to give the audience that dreamlike experience including a voice over on top of the visuals. This was a vox-pop of people who spoke about the dreams they had with the audience not seeing the person until the end of each dream. What I liked about it was that the filmmaker thought outside of the box to give the feel of being in the dreams. They used lighting, plastic bags over the lens, out-of-focus and underwater shots all to give that first person feel. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I liked it.
Overall a great days viewing was had. As always the international films offer a great way of seeing what other young filmmakers around the world are producing.
Eleanor McSherry
