Urbain and Magda won Benelux Festival !

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vanderlindenhig@telenet.b

Urbain and Magda won Benelux Festival !

Post by vanderlindenhig@telenet.b »

Last week the Benelux Festival took place in the medieaval town of Clervaux
in Luxemburg. It is one of the most prestigious film festivals on the continent.
Today I attended the ceremony. The winners were ... Urbain Appeltans and
Magda Verbist, the makers of "Hannah", the film that won the Daily Mail Trophy
at BIAFF ! Urbain Appeltans also received a special award for "best photography"
in his film "Cinemascope". So, they were the over-all winners. In the category
"Films the Fantasie" the wellknown filmmaker Tony Jacobs won the first prize
with his film "Feelings". The oganizers only showed an extract of his film
at the winners show. It's about a dwarf. Some years ago he was very successful
at BIAFF with his "Yellow Tulips" and at Unica with his "Career". Christiane
Surdiacourt, who attends BIAFF every year together with her husband was one
of the judges. Some other judges known in the UK were Vladimir Murtin and
Julien Loncke.
Dave Watterson

Re: Urbain and Magda won Benelux Festival !

Post by Dave Watterson »

"vanderlindenhig@telenet.be" <forums@theiac.org.uk> wrote:
Last week the Benelux Festival took place in the medieaval town of Clervaux
in Luxemburg. It is one of the most prestigious film festivals on the continent.
Today I attended the ceremony. The winners were ... Urbain Appeltans and
Magda Verbist
Hurrah! Congratulations again to Urbain and Magda. We may not be able to
spell their names properly in the magazine but we love their work! And it
is good to hear that Tony Jacobs is making top movies still ... he is a man
with so many interests in different art forms that I am amazed he finds time
for film making too.

It was an interesting jury ... Julian is very much old-school, Vladimir is
always encouraging the progressive and Christiane has very firm ideas. My
only regret is that language barriers make it unlikely that most UK delegates
would be able to get the best from attending the Benelux festival. When we
do see the winners at other events, with revoiced prints or subtitles they
are invariably excellent.

Dave
Willy Van der Linden

Re: Urbain and Magda won Benelux Festival !

Post by Willy Van der Linden »

"Dave Watterson" <david.filmsocs@virgin.net> wrote:
My only regret is that language barriers make it unlikely that most UK
delegates
would be able to get the best from attending the Benelux festival. When
we
do see the winners at other events, with revoiced prints or subtitles they
are invariably excellent.

The British are spoilt ! They think that everybody in the world should speak
and understand English.
Dave, I told you that at the Benelux festival there were films with English
subtitles. It was the first time that the Benelux organizers accepted English
spoken and subtitled films ! That's a good evolution, isn't it ? In the Benelux
three languages are spoken : Dutch, French and German. It's good that English
subtitles are accepted, because English is the first or second foreign language
in all our secondary schools.

A question : Wouldn't it be interested if entry fees for BIAFF and other
British festivals could also be paid in euros ? I think you would have more
participants from the Continent. Now, we always have to go to the Bank and
buy English pound-notes. I remember that in the Cotswolds, the most English
part in England, I could pay my meal in a restaurant with euros. Why not
for BIAFF ? Perhaps it's a bit risky to ask you this because I know that
most British people hate euro's.
Michael Slowe

Euros.

Post by Michael Slowe »

The British are spoilt ! They think that everybody in the world should speak
and understand English.
Dave, I told you that at the Benelux festival there were films with English
subtitles. It was the first time that the Benelux organizers accepted English
spoken and subtitled films ! That's a good evolution, isn't it ? In the
Benelux
three languages are spoken : Dutch, French and German. It's good that English
subtitles are accepted, because English is the first or second foreign language
in all our secondary schools.

A question : Wouldn't it be interested if entry fees for BIAFF and other
British festivals could also be paid in euros ? I think you would have more
participants from the Continent. Now, we always have to go to the Bank and
buy English pound-notes. I remember that in the Cotswolds, the most English
part in England, I could pay my meal in a restaurant with euros. Why not
for BIAFF ? Perhaps it's a bit risky to ask you this because I know that
most British people hate euro's.
Willy we don't hate Euros at all. We welcome the fact that we can keep them
at home and whenever we go to the continent we can be sure that we have the
right currency (except for Switzerland!) In the West End of London there
are shops that take Euros and this will become the norm within a few years
I believe. I am sure that if you just sent Euros for the entrance fee to
British festivals they would be accepted.

The problem with language in films is not so easily addressed. There are
films of course that don't need the spoken or written word for them to be
understood but very few. Since speech is so easy to incorporate into our
productions with modern technology we have become more verbose in our films,
not always for the better and I am as guilty in this more than most. Sub
titles are the answer I suppose but maybe getting the words dubbed by a speaker
of the relevent language might be better, what do people think about this.
It would be easy enough to substitute the speech track.
Dave Watterson

Re: Euros and languages

Post by Dave Watterson »

I too like Euros as a practical aid to travel. In fact I would prefer a single
currency worldwide both for practical reasons as a traveller and to reduce
the scope for manipulating currency markets.

When I was briefly IAC Treasurer I looked into setting up a Euro bank account
and at that time it was not possible in the UK. Now it is. Maybe the new
IAC Treasurer will consider it. A bigger problem is the cost of transferring
funds between countries. It is not really a good idea to send currency notes
by mail though that is often the most practical solution. I rather favour
the notion of IAC establishing a PayPal account which could accept payment
from credit cards worldwide.

Should we also consider accounts in other world currencies to suit regular
entrants? Where do we stop?!!

We may not jump into action on currency issues. A few IAC people are concerned
that the welcome growth in entries from overseas in our festival is not matched
by a growth in entries from the UK. Some of that is due to better publicity
in other countries - and the internet. The balancing factor is that more
UK film makers are taking part in and winning awards at overseas festivals.

As for languages ... you are right, Willy, you had told me the Benelux festival
is opening up a bit. I hope Jan and
I can attend one some year soon.

I do a small amount of subtitling and have also arranged voice-overs in other
languages. I would not attempt to do full dubbing with actors trying to match
the lips on screen with dialogue in another tongue. Nor do I like the format
many tv stations use around the world of having a single "neutral" voice
read a translation while allowing the sound of the original voices underneath
to make clear who is talking and what emotions they are expressing.

Willy sets a marvellous example by making many of his films available with
English commentaries as well as Dutch ones. There are a few non-documentary
films for which this would work ...

As an example - with the kind permission of Ken and Carol Wilson I arranged
a voice-over for their film 'Beyond the Clouds' which features Carol's commentary
throughout. I had to do some slowing down of the German soundtrack as the
German woman concerned spoke much more quickly than Carol had done. But that
was an exceptional case.

Dave (remembering years in infant school learning the maths to handle pounds,
shillings, pence, farthings and groats)
Ray W

Re: Euros.

Post by Ray W »

The trouble with the euro is that if a cheque etc comes from abroad in euro
(or other non-GBP currency) the banks charge a fortune to process and convert
it.
Anybody got any less costly ideas?
I am sure that "spot cash" would be no problem!
Cheers, Ray.
Ned C

Re: Euros.

Post by Ned C »

As Ray points out the problem with small amounts of foreign currency is the
bank charge to convert it. If an organisation has a Euro account then all
the Euro checks are deposited there and the charge for conversion will be
on a large single sum. Cash only works if it is in the currency of the receiving
country. One thought is for the national organisations to consolidate the
entries from their country for a foreign Festival, accept payment in the
local currency and then cut a bank draft for the total sum in the currency
of the receiving country. Another good reason to belong to a central organisation.
Payment by credit card is a possible alternative but the credit charges eat
into the all ready small sums charged, and I believe the entry fees should
be small to encourage the two main groups of entrants, impoverished students
and impoverished pensioners.

Sub titling films is a giant pain, I speak from the experience of sub titling
two of the US entries for UNICA. First find someone who is absolutely fluent
in the language, preferably a native speaker, they must also be absolutely
fluent in English or some points and slang will be missed. Then load the
entries into an editing system, teach the keyboard to speak the language,
discover how the keys have been rearranged and laboriously apply each title,
making the decisions where exactly it should go and end up with half the
screen covered with titling if two languages are used. Dubbing with multiple
voices is way beyond the capability of most n-c film makers. On balance I
think a voice reading the words with the film sound in the background is
probbaly the least painful.

Ned C




"Ray W" <raymond.williamson@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
The trouble with the euro is that if a cheque etc comes from abroad in euro
(or other non-GBP currency) the banks charge a fortune to process and convert
it.
Anybody got any less costly ideas?
I am sure that "spot cash" would be no problem!
Cheers, Ray.
Willy Van der Linden

VISA

Post by Willy Van der Linden »

"Ned C" <ned@anpsvideo.com> wrote:
As Ray points out the problem with small amounts of foreign currency is the
bank charge to convert it.

Yes, that's right. As you know I go to England very often. How do I book
accommodation ? I book on-line. I just give the number of my VISA card. The
bank charge is very small. It's as simple as that. What do you think of this
way of paying our entry fees for international festivals like BIAFF ? I also
book my ferry trips (PO and Norfolk Line) in this way. Booking a ferry trip
in a travel agency is much more expensive. Nowadays having internet at home
is a "must". I don't have to go to the bank anymore for money transactions.
As you see I don't make a plea for the euro, though I'm sure that a euro
coin with the Queen on it would make things much easier. But that's an other
problem and I do not want to open a discussion on this forum about this.
It's a political problem. Some years ago I always sent euro checks to Britain
to pay all the things I bought or booked there. But now in Belgium checks
don't exist anymore and that's a good thing. 5-6 years ago there were burglars
in our house at midnight. They stole my camera and my wife's handbags while
we were asleep. The gangsters left my camera in a meadow along the railway
line (perhaps while running away), but they bought things with the stolen
checks somewhere in Brussels. Luckily we were refunded by our bank thanks
to a good insurance.
martin Bracke

Re: Urbain and Magda won Benelux Festival !

Post by martin Bracke »

"Willy Van der Linden" <vanderlindenhig@telenet.be> wrote:
"Dave Watterson" <david.filmsocs@virgin.net> wrote:

My only regret is that language barriers make it unlikely that most UK
delegates
would be able to get the best from attending the Benelux festival. When
we
do see the winners at other events, with revoiced prints or subtitles they
are invariably excellent.

The British are spoilt ! They think that everybody in the world should speak
and understand English.
Dave, I told you that at the Benelux festival there were films with English
subtitles. It was the first time that the Benelux organizers accepted English
spoken and subtitled films ! That's a good evolution, isn't it ? In the
Benelux
three languages are spoken : Dutch, French and German. It's good that English
subtitles are accepted, because English is the first or second foreign language
in all our secondary schools.

A question : Wouldn't it be interested if entry fees for BIAFF and other
British festivals could also be paid in euros ? I think you would have more
participants from the Continent. Now, we always have to go to the Bank and
buy English pound-notes. I remember that in the Cotswolds, the most English
part in England, I could pay my meal in a restaurant with euros. Why not
for BIAFF ? Perhaps it's a bit risky to ask you this because I know that
most British people hate euro's.

All banks of the European Union have a convention about transferring money,
also the UK is a part of that banking convention (I checked on my bank).
You have to use the BIC and the IBAN-code of your correspondent and the condition
"shared costs" to have almost no costs!
Ask your bank for more information!
Use it on the entry forms of the Festivals!

Greetings.

Martin
Dave Watterson

Re: Euros.

Post by Dave Watterson »

Martin is right that there is now a faster and slightly cheaper way of transferring
funds within the EU - though there is still a charge. But for most international
film festivals the problem is larger than that.

At a quick count BIAFF this year had entries from:

13 Belgium
9 Germany
8 Netherlands
7 Austria
5 Canada
3 Italy
3 Czech Republic
2 Luxembourg
2 Norway
2 USA
1 Australia
1 Greece
1 Slovenia
1 Switzerland

Most are in the Euro area but not all!

Dave
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