The FESTIVAL OF NATIONS

A forum for sharing views on the art of film, video and AV sequence making as well as on competitions, judging and festivals.
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Dave Watterson
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The FESTIVAL OF NATIONS

Post by Dave Watterson »

The 2010 Festival of Nations ended on Saturday night. Over 1,000 entries had been examined by the pre-selection team. Around 150 were shown to the public and the international jury. (It really was an international jury: an Austrian director of photography, a Persian-born director and teacher, a Polish journalist, a Croatian film-maker and workshop leader ... and, er,Scots-born me.)

Some forum friends did send films, but could not attend the festival in person. The festival does all it can to encourage film makers to attend, since that makes for lively and interesting discussions. The majority of "selected" films are only guaranteed a showing if their "authors" turn up.

The only one of our forum readers to get an award - even though he did not attend - was Bob Lorrimer for his remarkable The Drill. Though the festival is mainly for films between 5 and 30 minutes long, one evening is given over to "shorties" like Bob's. Those are rated by audience vote rather than by the jury. Bob came second to a sentimental Iranian film. This year there was also a parallel programme of longer films ... one of which was a genuinely amateur, Austrian made "Bollywood" movie!

Though competition for the prizes is strong - the awards themselves make it worthwhile: they are cuddly, toy teddy-bears.

The dates for next year:
Films must be in by 1st February - they are already accepting entries, there is no fee.
Screenings are 12th - 18th June.

Why not consider attending in 2011?

The festival's working languages are German and English, so though it helps to have a little German it is not essential. 95% of the audience speak very good English and most - though not all - films are subtitled in English. Even if you - or your other half - do not fancy spending the whole week watching films ... the festival is in Ebensee, in the middle of the beautiful, white Salzkammergut mountains. There is a cable-car leading to good mountain walks - or in my case to mountain-top inns serving hot apple-strudel and cold beer! You can take a ferry up the lovely Traunsee lake to the tourist town of Gmunden or hop on the local train. A trip to Salzburg or Linz takes about an hour.

-Dave
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fraught
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Re: The FESTIVAL OF NATIONS

Post by fraught »

Nice one Dave... do you have a link to a website?
Only Boring People Get Bored
http://www.fraught.net
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Dave Watterson
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Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
Location: Bath, England
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Re: The FESTIVAL OF NATIONS

Post by Dave Watterson »

Yes I do ... See their excellent English website: http://8ung.at/filmfestival - click on the "Festival der Nationen" sign and then the Union Jack.
I expect they will add some albums of pictures soon.

BTW on the main IAC website at the home page click on the Festivals/Comps link on the right for info about lots of festivals.

Dave
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