(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Our approach to film is structured by dividing lines and labels, by words that carry a lot of restrictive connotations. That's why, for example, John Hyams' reboot is overlooked Universal Soldiersseries – a sparkling inspired horror vision in a time packed with ibux, physique and biotechnology. Therefore, one often places uncritical "original work" over "new recording". And that's why you don't give short film the attention it deserves.
The word "short film" probably has it even worse than the terms "reboot" and "re-recording". Although we are constantly watching short films, not least online, I still believe the concept of "short films" constantly leader. At a denotative level, it only names a certain duration of a movie. In other words, it is in other words a completely open category for cinematic expressions. Nevertheless, it is plagued by a number of negative connotations.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why many Grimstad residents stay away from the cultural center in the city during the annual Short Film Festival. There is no denying that the Short Film Festival in Grimstad is a reasonably industry-friendly festival. It is not that it is not an inclusive, lively and breezy atmosphere under the festival tents, in the sun and in the dark halls (where the sun often enters), but it is the film industry that dominates Grimstad's squares and pubs these days in June.
During the years I have been at the festival I have got the impression that Grimstad's ordinary residents tend to stop by during the festival's opening ceremony because of a celebrated visit, but then they disappear. As such, the memory of some of the industry people, who arrive festival and disappear just as quickly as their film has been shown. Fold in from the hall – and out.
Pause from production. Others are present – whether at work or taking time off from work – to watch and discuss movies into the late night hours. The sitting government (and the previous one) does not see the value of such to a sufficient degree forum for film culture, but together with the Cinematheques, film clubs and other social film initiatives, the festivals represent a vital meeting place for cinematic reflection and inspiration. The short film festival in Grimstad is important because it brings together several branches of an industry, and creates a low-threshold arena where people can meet and exchange experiences, and where filmmakers, journalists and intermediaries can think about their practices and drink beer together – a combination not to be missed of.
It can be hedonism, you should not hide it under a chair. Some also let the festival be a narcissistic performance, a pure network builder, a bubbling mingle in a mechanical production hunt. But the Short Film Festival facilitator at least to take a little break from their production and think about their work. In its often navel-gazing field of interest and its often reactionary aesthetic, Norwegian film culture benefits from such forums to think about what one is doing.
In addition to screenings, the organizers organize a kind of summery theoretical thinking on squares and seals, in cultural houses and backyards, and gives the short film an attention it rarely gets: an attention that relates to short films on its own terms.
The Short Film Festival is one of the few places where short films are understood and discussed as an independent, unified works – and not just as an exercise in a career.
The short film is often seen as a "taste piece", an "exercise" before the glamorous feature film. There is a strange radiance around the long fiction film. The short film doesn't just seem to lack that radiance – it seems to mangrove something more general. Where the fiction movie knocks itself on its chest, like some proud gorilla, the short film pops its head forward and asks if anyone knows about its existence – like an insatiable mussel. The Short Film Festival is one of the few places where short films are understood and discussed as an independent, unified works – and not just as an exercise in a career. Here, short films can be proud of themselves, and discussed as a full expression.
The art field and the film industry. In recent years, it has been seen that filmmakers from the art field have become more visible in what we call the film industry. There has been a tendency for the most exciting films to come from people with an art background. This is not so strange considering the formal and historical consciousness that one cultivates in the art academies.
During this year's festival, which takes place between 10 and 14 June, a focus will be placed on Pier Paolo Pasolini – whom the Cinemateket in Oslo recently devoted a retrospective – who was just an artist who came to the film based on another art form. When Pasolini made his first film (Beggar) he was already a respected author in Italy. In the lecture "The Poetic Film," Camilla Chams will talk about how Pasolini's transition from literature to film cannot "be described as a definitive violation, but rather as an extension of [his] poetic practice."
The festival also focuses on others with an essayistic-poetic approach to filmmaking, such as Anne Haugsgjerd, Eric M. Nilsson and Gustav Deutsch. IN Upside down, everything is abstract… Dad said (2014), Haugsgjerd engages in dialogue with his father's paintings, and struggles to give them an extended life. Gustav Deutsch describes his Edward Hopper-based Shirley – Visions of Reality (2014) as a "dialogue between painting and film". Deutsch is one of the most interesting actors in the Austrian avant-garde film. In the fantastic found footagemovie Film is. (1-12) (1998-2002), whom he calls himself "a tabloid film about the phenomenology of film media", he drives a kind of sensory-discursive thinking about the film's role as an art form and scientific technology. In Grimstad you can meet Deutsch and Hanna Schimek, a multimedia artist who has collaborated with Deutsch for decades.
Anja Breien is another film essayist who likes to engage in dialogue with other arts. She is also devoted to a special program. There is also Torill Kove, who makes very personal animated films. She has put together a program of films that have inspired her – including Osvaldo Cavandolis The line (1971), Wendy Offered Strings (2010) and Bert Gottschalks Bildfenster / Fensterbilder (2007). The latter is one found footagemovie shown on 35mm, with music by Schubert. Letting filmmakers curate the source of inspiration is often very fruitful, as it puts films in unexpected contact with each other.
We live in a time when we see and produce an extremely large number of "vivid images", but where the social spaces for thinking about these expressions are threatened by a gross dissemination of political perspective.
I hope these special programs are visited by the Norwegian and international filmmakers who have films included in the competition program. One of the most important things about the Short Film Festival in Grimstad is to showcase new films and "voices" in Norwegian film culture, and to give new Norwegian short films and documentaries a viewing context that gives them the respect and attention they deserve. But for a healthy film culture it is also essential to see and discuss a history of expression.
During last year's festival, the connection between the "art field" and the "film industry" was discussed; This year, it seems that a special focus will be placed on filmmakers who cross categories, who engage in dialogue with different arts, and where film becomes a way of thinking critically. In a Norwegian context, where filmmakers often seem to regard the world as one dramaturgical raw material, rather than seeing it as something to investigate and think about, there is much to be gained in meetings with filmmakers such as Deutsch, Breien, Nilsson, Haugsgjerd, Kove and Pasolini – filmmakers who work critically and experimentally with the latter called "the written language of reality" .
We live in a time when we see and produce an extremely large number of "vivid images", but where the social spaces for thinking about these expressions are threatened by a gross dissemination of political perspective. In this reality, the Short Film Festival in Grimstad stands out as an important social forum where short films get long conversations.
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