Encounters Festival Reviews

On Thursday evening I attended the ‘Comedy: Fun Rides’ event. This event consisted of short comedy films that varied in style between animation and live action. One of the films I watched was an animated film called “Have Heart” (2017; Director: Will Anderson). The film showed us the lives of two animated birds and the problems they encounter in their world. One of the birds eventually finds itself having what appeared to be an existential crisis. I did not particularly enjoy this film for a couple of reasons. The first and main reason why I didn’t like this film was the fact that it was not clearly explained that the bird characters were based on GIFs (aka a type of image format where the image appears to be animated). If this was somehow explained at the beginning of the film then it would have made it more enjoyable for the average viewer, as they would understand what it’s a parody of and would appreciate the little references and in jokes. I spent the entire film trying...

On Thursday morning I attended my second virtual reality event, VR 3: Scenario. One of the short films I enjoyed at this event was called “Blind Vaysha” (2016; Director and writer; Theodore Ushev). The film was based on an idea by the writer Georgi Gospodinov. The film told the story of a girl who sees the past in her left eye and the future in the right, and is unable to see the present. The VR headset was set up so that your left eye always sees the past and your right eye sees the future, which although it made the film slightly hard to watch given your eyes were seeing different things, it did make you feel like the character and made you empathise with her. It could be said that the film was similar in its style and story to the “Bosch VR” film, in that it shows you three parts of a story, in this case the past, the present and the future. Just like “Bosch VR” I particularly enjoyed this idea and I thought it made the film more interesting and unique. The past was sho...

Also on Wednesday I attended my first of two virtual reality events – VR 1: Electric Relaxation. This event consisted of four short films created with virtual reality in mind. My favourite of these films was called “Bosch VR” (2016; Director: John Durrant). The film was based on the famous 16th century painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. The film took you on a journey through the garden, showing you three different areas – the first was very much showing the beauty of nature with an abundance of wild animals, the second showed groups of naked people causing mayhem and partaking in orgies, and the third felt like hell, with depressing grey colours and dark imagery. The reason why I liked the film was because it felt like it took me on a story through the use of imagery and sounds. The way that the garden was separated into three different areas meant that it felt like there was a very distinct beginning, middle and end, i.e. the three act structure. The first area sh...

Another of my favourite short films at the festival, which was also an animated film, was “Dead Horses” (2016; Director and writer: Marc Riba and Anna Solanas), which I also watched on Wednesday afternoon at the “Animation 1: Packing a Punch” event. “Dead Horses” told the story of a mother and child who are forced to evacuate their home. The boy is perplexed by the amount of dead horses that are lying around, and eventually loses his mother after she is killed by a bomb explosion. The reason why I enjoyed “Dead Horses” because it told the story of a child whose country has been destroyed by a war. When I watched it I immediately thought it was inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. As with “Sog” the writers presumably expected the viewers to go away feeling empathy for the Syrian refugees if they did not already. It is an especially thought provoking film in the current age which is an era full of politicians and leaders who seem to be oblivious to the refugee crisis and ...

One of my favourite short films at the festival was the animated film “Sog” (2017; Director and writer: Jonatan Schwenk), which I watched on Wednesday afternoon. “Sog” told the story of a mysterious mountainous area inhabited by pitch black coloured creatures that has lots of fish stuck in trees following a flood. While some of the creatures instinctively try to attack and eat the fish, one of them tries his best to rescue them. One of the reasons why I enjoyed “Sog” was that it showed that a film doesn’t necessarily need dialogue to make an interesting and compelling story. (On a side note you could also argue that making a film with no dialogue means that it could be shown at any film festival without worrying about language problems) The nameless black creatures that inhabit the world can’t speak as they have no visible mouths, and the director Jonatan Schwenk conveys their emotions by just slightly altering the shape of their eyes. Thanks to this it is immediately clea...

The first film I saw at the festival was “The Limehouse Golem” (2016; Director: Juan Carlos Medina; Screenwriter: Jane Goldman (based on a book by Peter Ackroyd), on Tuesday night. Unlike some people I really enjoyed “The Limehouse Golem”. It had entertaining characters who were mostly played by talented and well suited actors, it had an intriguing and suspenseful mystery storyline with a surprising twist, and it had gloomy and murky aesthetics that fit the film well. The writer of the film, Jane Goldman, had previously written the 2012 adaptation of “The Woman in Black”, which is a horror film that shares a similar gloomy aesthetics and themes as “The Limehouse Golem”. It is also set in a similar time period – “Golem” is set in the late 19 th century whereas “The Woman in Black” is set during the early 20 th century. Like “Golem”, “The Woman in Black” was based on a book, so thus it could be said that Jane Goldman was a very suitable choice to write this film. I find ...