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Festival of Nations 2006
Burn the Highlanders

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Dave Watterson's report | Peter & Mary Rouillard's report | Festival of Nations website

An odd remark for a Scotsman perhaps. Highlander are the best known supplier of royalty-free music in Germany and Austria and I was commenting on the overuse of inappropriate synthesizer music. This was my second time on the jury at the Festival of Nations. That meant a week with spells of intense concentration on movies (great!) and then on working out what to say about them on stage shortly afterwards (not great!) and how to say at least some of it in German (aaargh!)

Any festival depends on the quality of films and the people who go. Luckily the Festival of Nations achieves excellence in both and the audience forgave both my rotten German and that I reverted to English frequently.

People

A remarkable aspect of the Festival of Nations is that when the jury go on stage to discuss the films seen in the previous hour or so, the audience and film makers join in. Many authors (film makers) were present for all or part of the week including several whose films are familiar in the UK too:

Portrait of Peter Rouillard.

Portrait of Frank Kopic.

Portrait of Jeannick and Pierre Michel.

Portrait of Yuliya Stankevich from KROK.

Portrait of Karin and Bernhard Hausberger.

Peter Rouillard whose films
include The Wager and
with his brother Endings.

Franc Kopic whose films
include Global Ha-Ha and
No Signal.

Jeannick and Pierre Michel
whose films include
Barbe bleue and Le Billet.

Yuliya Stankevich from the KROK
(first steps) children's animation studio

Karin and Bernhard
Hausberger whose work
includes Battle of the Oranges.
Portrait of Filippo Lubiato. Portrait of Bernhard Zimmermann.

Portrait of Horst Orlich.
Portrait of Reinhardt Steiniger.
 Portrait of Oskar Siebert.

Filippo Lubiato whose work
includes Amazing Grace
and Express to Silence.

Bernhard Zimmermann
known for Vision 21 and
Dickens and Daughter.

Horst Orlich who is best
known in UK for
Magic Times.

Reinhardt Steiniger - best
known as the VW driver
in the one-minute Duel.

Oskar Siebert whose work
includes Prague Romance
and Mutter.

Films

745 films were entered and we saw 110 in competition (plus 35 shorties - movies under 5 minutes). The standard was very high. Full results are on the Festival of Nations website (see below). To pick just a few of my favourites apart from those mentioned by Peter and Mary in their report ...

Still from 'Lupe and Bruno'. Still from 'Exploding Buds'. Still from 'A Rather Different Year'. Still from 'Flower for Father'. Still from 'Amal'.

Lupe and Bruno
charming and saucy
animated tale of lust

Exploding Buds
surreal fairy story
with great charm

A Rather Different Year
remarkable documentary
on facing cancer

Flower for Father
a touching tale about
loneliness and love

Amal
a little morality tale
about honesty

If you want to enter next year's festival get your entry in by 1st March 2007 (no fee, length up to 30 minutes, details on their website).

If you want to enjoy a week of fun and fine film that's on 17th - 23rd June. Contact me david.filmsocs@virgin.net for suggestions on cheap travel.

- Dave Watterson

See also Peter & Mary Rouillard's report and the Festival of Nations website:

Page updated on 21 March 2008

Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers

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