sneersnipe film review

Five aside Football summed up the International Rotterdam Film Festival in 2007. Strange really but very Rotterdam too. Not that I saw any of it: Under the declaration that soon everything was going to be made redundant by download on demand, the organisers were wryly remarking that if you get together for a film festival you might as well play football as much as watch films these days, because that mute juggernaut, the internet, rushing to change everything will soon make film festivals redundant.

The delicious irony of all this (at which the organisers were clearly hinting at) was this: would the kind of films that they show at the Rotterdam Film Festival be available easily online in this impending brave new world? However hopeful we might be, the cynic inside us all mutters probably not. But with reduced distribution costs (merely paying hosting costs) we live in a time of unmitigated hope.

Football aside, Rotterdam 2007 seemed distinctive in that there were less 'marque' films from recognised film makers compared to previous years. In short a great film festival to take your chances with if you could handle the odd miss-fire or two. For every Parents, a great actor led Icelandic drama in the vein of Mike Leigh, there was a Zero Zone, an Indian film about Cricket match fixing which was actually quite good, hardly a golden duck at all. And they were also showing Container.

Concerning the VPRO Tiger Awards I saw slightly less of the films in competition compared to previous years, only watching two of the eventual four winners. Unusually the jury awarded four prizes as opposed to the usual three, giving kudos to Love Conquers All, The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen), and with Bog of Beasts (Baixio das bestas) and AFR sharing the third prize. Love Conquers All and Bog of Beasts I can't speak of because I didn't see them but the others were undeserving in comparison to many of the other films in competition which I did see. AFR, a cleverly reconstructed fantasy about Denmark's current Prime Minister, was at best largely lost on anybody ignorant of Danish politics and offered few olive branches to outsiders. The Unpolished seemed to be a retelling in slacker criminal terms of the Christian Petzold film The State I Am In.

A few (mentioned below) were likely penalised for being too commercial or for simply lacking raw edges but two films in particular stood out and although they didn't win Tigers they did both win other awards or mentions. Fourteen won the NETPAC Award for Asian films and was a great depiction of misguided teenagers and their scarcely better teachers; How is My Fish Today received a special mention and was a layer mix of documentary and fictional drama that shared similarities to 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep. Both films were considerably better than The Unpolished or AFR.

Of the films with more commercial prospects in competition, Ex Drummer allegedly initiated a bidding war for the foreign rights whilst The Aerial (La Antenna) was sufficiently distinctive to probably gain a strong foothold on the festival circuit and hopefully more. Unusually for a Tiger film The Aerial (La Antenna) actually excited me immediately rather than fanning appreciative embers as per normal. It instantly stuck out with its blurting visual technique, for once being a film that could almost live up to the pompous, over building hyperboles in the press notes. Here was a film that was actually trying to re-invent how language is interpreted in a film by depicting subtitles as a visual part of a talking-free world. This left Tides (La Marea), a deeply emotive film about bereavement from Carlos Reygadas' cinematographer Diego Martinez Vignatti. It was one of those mesmerising South American works where very little happens.

Stepping outside the Tigers it was perhaps telling that The Mark of Cain has appeared on the festival slate. A British protest film about the treatment of Iraqi civilians in the ongoing peacekeeping/occupation it fitted right in with the politics on display whilst being seductively disappointing. Last year Joe Dante's TV film Homecoming had done the same thing but far far better. Still if you can't bash the US at a European film festival where can you. Thankfully the other British première on offer proved much better. Laurin Felderin's film school graduation film Build a ship, Sail to Sadness sublimely had a melancholic German disco fanatic travelling the Scottish Highlands by moped in a desperate bid to convince the locals to embrace his beats.

Lastly the cutting of Hubert Bals funding received some publicity as it was kicked about prominently in time with the duration of the festival itself. Given centre stage festival director Sandra den Hamer wasted no time in beating the drum. Some sympathy somewhere could be reserved for the Dutch minister defending the cut in wanting to finance films that might actually make some immediate money. Though the funding has supported many great films, even the Dutch good nature might be stretched by it especially in a year where there were no Dutch films in Tiger Awards.

The killer retort to that argument is the lasting appeal and scope of the Rotterdam Film Festival: an unbeatable reason for continued funding even if it isn't focused on Dutch productions. The funders only need look at the comparative scarcity of original films at the British Film Festivals. The Rotterdam Film Festival is a well attended international event that will ably promote any Dutch films that are shown. They only need keep the faith, and continue organising the football.

Rotterdam International Film Festival Awards 2007

KPN Audience Award
The Lives of Others

VPRO Tiger Award Winners
The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen)
Love Conquers All
Bog of Beasts (Baixio das bestas)
AFR

The Tiger Awards for Short Films
Video Game
Hinterland
The Flag (Bayrak)

KNF Award
Nina Davenport for Operation Filmmaker

Netpac Award
Hirosue Hiromasa for Fourteen

FIPRESCI Award
Me (Yo)