During the Film by the Sea festival, Bram Medelli was part of the International Student Jury. Allow him to take you through his diary of a week of judging films.
Friday – Imagine a grand opening gala with photographers running around to get a shot of all the celebrities in their fancy allure. Now imagine that in Vlissingen, with us students as jury members between them. We were the first to enter the foyer (even before professor Luscombe and her daughter!) and there were oysters and glasses of champagne, a band and an opening film featuring renowned actors such as Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) is the first film we watched together as a jury. Afterwards we had a classy hangout, wearing tuxes and smoking a big Cuban. Proper jury bonding.
Saturday – This morning we had a workshop by Gerlinda Heywegen. She introduced us to a different way of looking at films. Since I have taken the course Introduction to Theatre and Media at UCR, I had learnt this approach already, but it was useful to refresh this knowledge. Afterwards we watched the first film out of the eight we are going to rate, The Happiest Life of Olli Makki (2016), about a boxer trying to deal with media attention. It did not make a grand impression on me. Afterwards we had our first of many discussions about a film. It was still a bit awkward at first, since someone had to lead the whole discussion, but after a while, we got used to the format.
Sunday – The workshop we had today was about how love is represented in film. We compared films from different cultures, which was really useful and intriguing since the nominated films are from all over the world. We had the afternoon off only to return that evening for Mellow Mud (2016), which we watched together with the Youth Jury. The Youth Jury consists out of a large group of high school kids compared to the nine of us students. We each sat down with a group of Youth Jury members to discuss the movie afterwards, which proved to be really enlightening! They saw some things in the film that I completely missed and I had some points that they noted down as well.
Afterwards we went back to watch Wounded Angel (2016), the movie that made the biggest impact of all on us. Some people burst out in tears and the rest of us were awfully quiet. The film tells the story of four young boys in Kazakhstan after the fall of the USSR. Visually the film was stunning and the stories were quite realistic, which made it very hard to watch sometimes. It was only during the discussion afterwards that we realised it had made such an impact on us, because we all had a very strong opinion about it. When we shared our thoughts, we found out that there is a lot more symbolism and beauty to the film than we initially thought.
Monday – Today we only had to watch two films in the evening. The first was Between Sea and Land (2016), a touching Columbian story about a young man who suffers from a muscle disease. The film’s setting was beautiful and the story was extremely touching. Again some of us needed tissues afterwards. Between Sea and Land was amazingly constructed to vivaciously swipe us off our feet. The lead actor Manolo Cruz, who also directed the film, portrayed the muscle disease accurately. My cousin has the same disease so I immediately recognised the spastic movements he mimicked so excellently.
After little time to process the first film we went on to the second: 2 Nights Till Morning (2015). It did not make a big impression on any of us. Perhaps because it had less of a cultural message since it was English spoken for the most part, or because it felt more like a Hollywood film and less like a piece of art to us.
Tuesday – We had even less time today, so we consecutively watched both Sparrows (2016), an Icelandic film about a boy trying to settle in with his dad, and Burn Burn Burn (2015), a British road trip film with loads of humour and a great message. We had no time to discuss in-between films. After Burn Burn Burn, one of our favourites, we had the chance to meet the producer Daniel-Konrad Cooper to ask him questions and have a beer with him. He told us stories of how he worked together with directer Christopher Nolan and how he funded films with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Afterwards he took us to his car, Betsy, which was prominently featured in the film.
Wednesday – Tonight we watched the eighth and final nominated film for our award, Rauf (2016). Rauf is a boy who falls in love with a young lady who wants a pink scarf. He wants to get one for her, but he has never seen the colour pink… The film was set in Kurdistan, so wat is again a completely different film than we are used to. The only downside is that the subtitles were in Dutch instead of English, so most of us could not understand it due to the different nationalities we all had. After the discussion of this film, we went on the final debate of which films would constitute our top three, whilst enjoying some Bridget Jones cupcakes we had found.
The discussion got pretty heated, because some people were very fond of Wounded Angel and some liked Mellow Mud better. However, most of us thought that the first place was either going to be taken by Burn Burn Burn or by Between Sea and Land. These films made the biggest impressions on us. An interesting discussion was whether the artsy Wounded Angel should win because it left us speechless even if we did not enjoy it as much, or whether Burn Burn Burn should win because we enjoyed it so much. After some more discussing and cupcakes we picked a top three.
Thursday – Today was the day we award the winning film, appropriately, in one of the cinema halls. First the Youth Jury announced their top three with a great presentation. Next up was the International Student Jury and we all stood in front of the screen to reveal our winners. First someone spoke about our number three, Mellow Mud. Following was I, speeching about Between the Sea and Land, our winning film, and lastly we had somebody express why Burn Burn Burn is our number two. We handed the prize out to a representative since the director/lead actor could not make it, but the representative did read out a happy e-mail.
Afterwards there was a small party in a hotel in Vlissingen. Egbert Jan Weeber was the DJ at the party; he even let me play a song! It was an awesome night until the party got shut down because of noise complaints from the neighbours (sounds familiar?). So I thanked everyone for a great time and now I look forward to the reunion!
Being a part of the International Student Jury was a great and fun experience, where I got to learn a lot about film and organising a film festival. I met some great people from both the International Student Jury and the Youth Jury, as well as had a great dinner with Mrs. Luscombe and my girlfriend. I would definitely recommend this to anyone at UCR next year if you like films and getting out of our little Middelburg bubble. Be prepared for a busy week though!
Bram Medelli, Class of 2018, is an Arts & Humanities major from Groesbeek, the Netherlands.
