Tampere Film Festival

http://www.tamperefilmfestival.fi

Annual Tampere Film Festival began today. It’s a short film festival held in the city I live in. I would have liked to take part as a volunteer but because I work fulltime that was not possible. But at least I’ll be easily able to take part at least to screenings and other things in the programme.

Today I went to see the Screening 2 of the international competition. Screening 2 was called “Keep living” and tells different stories of people making their living. My main target to see was The Date by Finnish director Jenni Toivoniemi. But I’ll get back to that later after reviewing the other films at the display.

First one up was Irish Folk Furniture by Tony Donoghue, surprisingly from Ireland. The shortie wasn’t really my cup of tea but it has already won Short Film Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival. And getting noticed at Sundance is a big thing. Sometimes when you won there, you also might end up winning at the Oscars. The second film of the screening was Entre Les Passes by Myriam Rachmuth. It’s kind of a short film (22 min, so it’s also quite long) of two women discussing a lot on their spare time. Even though it totally lacked of structure, it was still interesting to me. But couple of my friends thought it was dreadful.

The third one was my favourite, Unravel by Meghna Gubta. The film tells a story of recycled clothing from Western world and it’s way to to India where they make blankets out of it. Unravel made me laugh to myself in very gentle way. And left me smiling. If you have a change, do watch this short documentary, it’s worth it. The fourth was Cage by Karima Hassanzada. It was not good but you just have to appreciate that the director is 26-year-old woman from Afghanistan, Kabul, and is making films. That’s really not something that everybody could do.

The fifth instalment was Stone Melody by Parviz Rostami. It lasted 11 minutes but I hoped it would end at the second minute. But it has won prizes. Next one was Seven Minutes in Warsaw Ghetto that was hugely beautiful animation based on a true story. After the screening we had a chance to hear from the writer how it all got together. For example director Johan Oettinger used actors real eyes attached to puppets used in the animation. The effect was amazing. This one I recommend to see too, beautiful job.

The last one of the screening was The Date by Jenni Toivoniemi who’s Finnish film maker and a woman (there’s no reason to pretend that film industry is not very much driven by men). AND she won Short Film Jury prize at Sundance Film Festival. As I said, big deal. And forgive me of saying this but because she doesn’t look like she’s in her early twenties, it does give me hope age-wise. Plus the film is very good. Funny, well acted and neatly made. And the idea itself is already weird in a good way. I recommend.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to attend to different parts of the programme at Tampere Film Festival but I will at least go to this discussion of the art of the screenwriting and of course to Tampere Trash and Undergroud Film Festival that is held inside Tampere Film Festival and is organized by a friend of mine. Lots of gore and blood. But for example last year the closing film Goremageddon was a thing beauty despite the subject. Hopefully this year will be as good.