In its 18th year, the Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival is ready for their most international year yet with 36 countries represented in the 188 live action and animated shorts on show between September 18th to 23rd. It all takes place at the Arnolfini and Watershed in Bristol and the festival is sure to give us a breakout star or two. There’s also a pretty impressive events scheduled so far, including:
Focus on Finland featuring the best of Finnish short film and animation and a pop-up Cine-Sauna;
Soviet-era silent film Aelita – The Queen of Mars screened in a big top circus tent, with a live score by Finnish band Cleaning Women, cross-dressing zombies whose industrial folk-pop musical style is created by unusual instruments made from scrap materials such as washing machines;
BEAM, an evening of live music and projected art at Watershed, cut and spliced by renowned DJs and street artists;
Nick Park, Peter Lord and David Sproxton of Aardman Animations in conversation for a rare joint public appearance;
Directors UK present director and animator Sam Fell (Flushed Away, The Tale of Despereaux), coinciding with the UK release of ParaNorman, co-directed with Chris Butler;
Retrospective of the work of visual artist Paul Bush (While Darwin Sleeps, Secret Love) who will present a master class alongside a screening of his new feature Babeldom;
Master Classes from BAFTA in cinematography and the NFTS in sound – with a spotlight on Adrian Utley from Portishead;
Workshops on Expanding Stories on Multi-Platforms, Pitching, Casting, Directing Actors and 3D Filmmaking;
Focus on Nexus, the award-winning independent production company and animation studio whose credits include short films, commercials (Honda, Coca Cola) and music videos (Rolling Stones, U2, Franz Ferdinand);
Future Encounters, 10 upcoming filmmakers who are names to watch.
This is a fantastic way for filmmakers of any calibre to learn and get an understanding of how to make a short or animated film. Not only this but there will be some truly amazing films on show. In the Animation section: Aardman’s So you want to be a Pirate?, a comic game show pastiche featuring key characters from the recent feature film The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, and three new films from Darren Walsh (Angry Kid, Compare the Meerkat commercials) featuring East End character ‘Bob’.
Also highly anticipated are the latest contributions from world masters such as: Bulgarian multimedia artist Theodore Ushev (Drux Flux, Lipsett Diaries); veteran Dutch animator Paul Driessen, nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 for 3 Misses; US pop-culture legend Don Hertzfeldt, creator of Everything Will Be OK and the Academy Award nominated Rejected. Annecy Grand Crystal award winning film Tram by Czech animator Michaela Pavlatova and The Last Bus by Martin Snopek and Ivana Laucikova from Slovakia, winner of the Grand Prix at Tampere Short Film Festival will also feature.
Whilst amongst the Brief Encounters competition candidates: The Man Phoning Mum by renowned avant garde filmmaker John Smith, in which he revisits his iconic 1976 film The Girl Chewing Gum; Chris Shepherd’s latest work, comedy short DrillerFiller; Care by Amanda Boyle, produced by Warp Films and starring Gina McKee (The Silence, In the Loop); Il Capo by Italian director Yuri Ancarani, winner of the Grand Prix in the Lab competition at Clermont-Ferrand; Umshini Wam by maverick US filmmaker Harmony Korine, an off the wall collaboration with South African rapper duo Die Antwoord. Documentaries are a prominent feature this year, including: Meghna Gupta’s Unravel, audience award winner at the CFC Worldwide short film festival in Toronto; Paraiso by American Nadav Kurtz, winner of best documentary short at Tribeca 2012.
You can be guaranteed a great time on the waterfront of the Bristol docks so get involved, and if that isn’t enough they’ll be running showings in six parks around the Bristol area with live music added into the festivities. This is the summer that keeps on giving so get over to www.encounters-festival.org.uk and get your tickets now!
