ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL

As part of the course our tutors organised a trip to the Rotterdam Film Festival. The trip was a fantastic experience as it differed greatly from the trip during second year to Berlinale; with a large amount of experimental and short films to available to go see over a much smaller city. I feel that due to this festival being much smaller we were able to go see more films as the screenings were less geographically spread out. I focused on trying to see as many short films as possible attending three separate short film collections this was a great way of fitting in a wide variety of films in a short space of time. 

Chris Daniels also informed us of a night called Throwing Shadows, which was a night of Japanese Expanded Cinema, in a really interesting underground bar called Worm (which had the most bizarre toilets you've ever seen.) It was an incredible experience as it was something I had never really come across and live it was extremely impressive, although it probably wont directly influence any of my work this year I found that it gave me some really strong ideas for shorts that I intend to make post-graduation and in the years to come.

The selections of shorts varied massively from experimental to narrative films, with an even wider variation of themes from the Syrian war to a girls struggle between masturbation and religion. Some I enjoyed less than others but many of them resonated firmly with how I would like my films to come across.

 We also went a viewed a documentary called ‘Night and Fog in Zona’ by Jung Sung-il. This was a four-hour documentary that was as much a test of resolve as it was a film. There were some good moments and interesting shots however I seriously struggled with it as it was a fairly slow paced portrait. Having said this there were parts and sections that I will take into consideration as I plan on also making quite a slowly paced film so it could help in doing that. Below is a description of the film as provided by the IFFR website.