Some people are quite creative with their age. It can happen that they celebrate their 29th, 49th or 69th birthday every year. The Munich Film School Festival, known to older contemporaries as the International Festival of Film Schools, has recently cheated a little: The 40th edition in November 2020 was announced as “Filmschoolfest Munich 39 ½”, but the festival organizers were not afraid of aging. On the contrary: As the event could only take place online due to the pandemic, the big birthday was simply postponed by a year.
The pandemic is still not over, but face-to-face events are still possible. And so from Sunday, November 14th, 46 short films by film students from 26 countries will be shown in the Audimax cinema of the University of Television and Film (HFF). The program features feature films, documentaries and animated films, and it deals with topics such as growing up, the climate, gender issues, politics or the pandemic.
The festival was founded in 1981 by the then HFF Professor Wolfgang Längfeld, and over the years, later directing stars such as Thomas Vinterberg, Maren Ade, Lars von Trier, Caroline Link and Nick Park have presented their first cinematic works here. But is such an event still up-to-date in times of digitization and rapid media change?
“A dance for the end of the world” will take place in Madrid in April 2020.
(Photo: Filmschoolfest Munich)
Today’s students have different ideas about the filmmaking profession than the generations before them, they are also networked very differently. “Festivals are nice, but quite time-consuming,” admits Camille Tricaud, “I never met a lot of people there either.” The Frenchwoman studies at the HFF, she likes to get information online and contact other young filmmakers directly, she says. But that is of course a question of character, everyone behaves differently. She still has positive memories of the film school festival: Together with her fellow student Franziska Unger, she made the satirical short film “Apocalypse, Baby”, which received an invitation to the festival in 2019 – and won the Climate Clip Award endowed with 5000 euros. But the money went straight to the next project, she says with a laugh.
In the last year in particular, there was a lack of exchange
Another winner is Simon Denda, who was awarded the Student Oscar in October for his short film “Adisa”. The HFF graduate has a special relationship with the Filmschoolfest: In 2015 he was allowed to shoot the festival trailer, which was shown not only in the cinema, but also on the video walls of the Munich subway. “During the festival there is a nice feeling of belonging,” he remembers, “it’s not so much about industry contacts, but more about exchanging ideas with one another.” In addition, all students should experience how their films are received on the big screen in front of a live audience, believes Denda.
Anna Roller, who studies feature film directing at the HFF, also agrees. She remembers the festival in 2017 when her short film “Pan” was shown in the competition program. “I especially loved the moderators,” she says. “You managed to start a good conversation – even though there were people in the audience who didn’t like the film.” She recently shot her graduation film in Italy, where she wrote to many of her Italian festival contacts, who then also gave her tips and helped, she says.
Cats change life, who would deny that? “MMM … Cat” is the proof.
(Photo: Filmschoolfest Munich.)
So it looks as if events like the film school festival have their raison d’etre in 2021, even if students still have completely different options today. And what about the online festivals? She knows them too, of course, says Anna Roller: “But just last year you noticed how much we all missed the exchange.”
40th Filmschoolfest Munich, Sun., 14th to Sat., Nov. 20, Munich University of Television and Film (HFF), www.filmschoolfest-munich.de