The festival felt like a lot of work this year. It’s always more than a little laborious to attend half a dozen compilations of short films and two or three features in less than a week in addition to a lecture or two or three per day. My presentation schedule compounding with a remote delivery on deadline (and spotty at best internet connections) conspired to add further level of exertion. As a result, I feel like I didn’t get as much from the week as I sometimes have.
On the whole, no films really stick in my memory one way or the other. Nothing horrible. Nothing outstanding.
This morning I made it to Barry Purves’ screening at the National Gallery.
Barry Purves
In his introduction to the screening, he said something to the effect: when computer generated imaging came around he thought it would be the end of puppets. Instead, c. g. has become more and more about realism freeing animation to behave more like puppets. I thought it was an interesting observation.
The program itself suffered from uninspired curation. It began with three longish excerpts from children’s films. From there it moved into a few very long pieces, ending with a couple BBC shorts. What the audience got was similar film repeating after similar film without much variation in pace from subject to subject. Had the kids’ films been interspersed with the more challenging pieces, it may have provided a balance to continually engage the audience.
The work itself is remarkable and his brief talk showcased a terrific wit and intelligence.
The awards ceremony was unceremonious.
The feature award went to “Wrinkles”. I’ve seen two of the three other films in competition. They’re vastly different. That is a sign of great vibrancy for the technique.
All of the winners are here. As always, some questionable choices, but the whole notion of “awarding” films is ridiculous anyways so there’s not much reason to get worked up over it.
