“LIFE IS SHORT” - FIKE 12th International Short Film Festival, 21 through 25 October 2014 in Evora, Portugal

Nik and I love Portugal, the food, the wine, the people, so when I was invited to be on the jury of FIKE and Nik was asked to give a workshop we were very excited.  We had never been to Evora before so we weren’t prepared for the unique beauty of the historic town.

 

Located in the heart of Southern Portugal, Evora became the second city of the kingdom of Portugal when King Manuel built a royal palace there in the 16^th Century.  In 1986 the city center was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, however the rich cultural heritage of the area dates to the Neolithic ear.  West of the city there is an area rich in megalithic monuments erected during the early, middle, and late Neolithic period over 5,000 years ago and the Roman’s left evidence of their settlement including the ruins of a Roman Temple dedicated to Diana and an aqueduct.  All of this and I got to watch film too!

Portugal has a great tradition of puppetry and the festival got off on a high note on opening night with the world premiere of Vladimir.  The film is a work in progress by Ana Bossa and Nuno Bouca inspired by puppeteer Manuel Costa Dias and his puppet Vladimir.  Dias’ artistry is truly magical.  He has created a unique universe which transports the viewer into total belief of Vladimir’s world.  His animated magic made me forget that Dias was manipulating a puppet.  Following the film we were treated to an appearance by Dias and Vladimir.  You can see a short clip of the film at:   Vimeo.com/108724959

 

Supporting film production in and around the Alentejo region has been a goal of the FIKE Festival since its inception.  Vladimir’s film makers are both from the region, and puppeteer Dias splits his time between Siberian Russia and Evora.  The film is the first in what is hoped to be a series of projects about marionettes and puppets.

Following a short intermission, the first competition program was presented, which combined animation, live action and documentary films.  Two films stood out to me in this program.  The Brazilian documentary Giants of Joy by Ricardo Rodrigues is a celebration of the samba school Embaixadores de Algeria (Ambassadors of Joy) which is made up entirely of dwarfs.   The film truly captured the joy of life that this samba troop of little people celebrates at their yearly Carnival appearance.

I have seen Ana Solanas and Marc Riba’s sixteen minute puppet animation Canis several times but it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck to stick up.  The Catalonian duo have created an eerie film about two young people and their pet dog who are isolated in a house that is constantly besieged by a pack of wild dogs.  The film also impressed the rest of the jury and it was selected for the Best Animated film award.

There were several other excellent animated films that I have seen and written about before, including German animator Thomas Stellmach and Maja Oschmann’s beautiful Virtuos Virtuell and Kassa 9 by Anna Heuninck, a student from KASK (Gent, Belgium).

  O Coveiro(The Grave Digger) was an interesting surprise.  Portuguese animator Andre Gil Mata’s film is a horror fairy tale in true gothic tradition.  Mata combines stop motion and live action in a cast of bizarre characters, including a dwarf who involuntarily cuts off the heads of people he meets, a sleeping beauty who falls in love with the headless grave digger, and a child who is born a monster.  O Coveiro won the Best Portuguese film award.

Portuguese animator Paulo D’Alva describes his film Carratrope  or Merry-go-trope as a new optical toy combining a portmanteau with a thaumatrope.  Portmanteau is a word formed by blending two words (ie breakfast and lunch into brunch) and thaumatrope which was a popular 19 century toy made by attaching two pieces of string to a paper disk with a picture on each side.  When the two strings are twirled between the fingers quickly the two pictures appear to blend into one image.  The eight minute film went by so rapidly at 24 frames a second that I just concentrated on the images.  I really want to see it again to see what I missed.  Carratrope won the best Portuguese film award at the prestigious Monstra Animation Festival in Lisbon as well as being nominated for the Sophia, the Portuguese equivalent of an Oscar, in the short animation category.

Because FIKE combines animation, live action, and documentaries in each program it was a treat for me to see so many excellent live action shorts.  Matilde is a sensitive live action film about the difficulties of deafness as seen through the eyes of a lively, intelligent deaf child.  With her independent personality, Matilde uses her wits and ingenuity to solve the problem of the chaotic noise that she hears with her hearing aid that is caused by fellow students pushing their chairs back and forth in her classroom.

Director Vito Palmieri was commissioned by AGFA (Association of Parents of Deaf Children) to make the film and all of the actors are deaf.   The script is based on the true story of Matilde De Silva, who plays the title role, and appears in every frame.  Her expressive face which lit up the screen combined with an exceptional performance for someone so young earned Ms De Silva the Best Actress award at FIKE in a field of several strong contenders.

I was also very impressed by the Dutch film Reizigers On De Nacht  (Travelers On The Night) directed by Ena Sendijarevic.  The film revolves around a woman who works the late night shift in a gas station.   Feeling very lonely, she watches people come and go in and out of her mundane existence.  Her life changes forever when a stranger comes into the store.  The story is told without dialogue using only the expressions on the two main characters faces and music.  The film garnered the Best Fiction Film award.

Bulgarian director Alexandra Gaha’s Venina (The Neighbor) is a very humorous film involving two young female roommates who are interrupted by a knock on the door while smoking a joint in their flat.  What follows is a comedy of errors that involve their young male upstairs neighbour, the landlord and a couple of joints.  It kept the audience in gales of laughter.  The film was awarded a Special Jury Mention.

The Belgian film The Being from Elsewhere was the highlight of the documentary category for me.  Guy Bordin and Renaud De Putter’s true life story of Dedee who has been a prostitute in a window of a Brussels sex parlor for thirty years is very poignant.  Dedee tells the story of her uncommon life with frankness and humor, beginning with her early debut in the business when she discovered that she was “a whore in the soul” which came as a great shock to her “respectable” relatives.  Her story garnered a Special Jury Mention in the Documentary category.

 

Our jury was a very diverse group.  I had never met three of my fellow jury members, but they turned out to be equally charming as my dear friend Rastko Ciric who was also on the jury.  Rastko is a true Renaissance man who is a brilliant animator, writer, graphic designer, musician composer and a professor.  He is also co-founder and artistic director of the Festival of European Student Animation (FESA).  It was also a great pleasure to finally get to meet his partner Selena Stankovic.  She is as charming, lovely, and talented as Rastko had told me she was.

Manuel Mozos from Portuguese has directed over 20 short, feature and documentary films.  Luis Filip Borges, the youngest member of our jury, has already has a wealth of experience.  He is a comedian, talk show host, award winning screenwriter and actor as well as the author of over 20 books.

During the week I particularly enjoyed getting to know Rui Simoes.  Besides having a long illustrious career in the film industry, he is a thoroughly charming gentleman.  He started his career as a unit still photographer in Belgium.  In 1974 he began his cinematographic career in Portugal directing two feature films as well as three short documentaries on the state of Portuguese affairs at the time.  Since then he has worked on several films as well as being a production director of the Cinema Animatografo.  He is currently affiliated with the audio visual production company  Realficcao which he founded in 1986.  He now works  there as a producer.

With so much diverse knowledge our jury deliberation included exciting discussions.  In the end we reached unanimous decisions on all of our awards. There was also a separate jury from the International Federation of Film Societies which presented the FICC Award.  The complete results are at the end of the article.

 

FIKE received over 1,000 submissions this year and since some very worthy films could not be programed in the competition there were two Panorama programs.  One Panorama program was animation and the other was comprised of works from film schools.  A special program for children was also screened.  The five films competing for the 2014 Cartoon D’Or were also shown.

Both Nik and Rastko gave workshops in conjunction with the festival.  Nik taught Soundtracks for Animated Film at the Department of Music at the University of Evora.  The thirty students in the two day workshop were a mixture of would be composers and music students who wanted to learn more about composition.

Meanwhile across town at the university’s Department of Visual Arts and Design Rastko led a hands-on animation workshop.  During the 4 day workshop his participants made a short film which was screened at the closing night ceremony.  Between the workshop and jury duty, Rastko was quite busy.

Following the last screening each evening there were concerts at different venues.  The performances ranged from classical/pop to DJ’s for dancing.  Rastko and Nik love to play together whenever they are at the same festival.   One night the duo gave a concert at a local club playing blues, Beatle songs and of course songs composed by Rastko for his Rubber Soul Project.

 

Using titles from the Lennon/McCartney songbook which the pair never wrote words or music for, Rastko wrote songs that could easily be mistaken for the Beatles if you didn’t listen to the lyrics carefully.  In 1996 Rastko and his Serbian band released their first album The Rubber Soul Project: An Imaginary Project”.  A documentary film was also made about the group and the making of the recording.  He is currently putting the finishing touches on a new Rubber Soul Project album which will be released soon.  Nik makes a guest appearance on the new CD.  You can learn more about the project and the CD at:

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_Soul_Project

And

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribber_Sole_Project_(album)

I had never had the pleasure of meeting the delightful Patricia Casey before but she was the special guest at FIKA to receive a life time achievement award honoring her long, illustrious career at the closing night ceremony.    Patricia began her career as a ballerina and was brought to film as the choreographer for a Danny Kaye film.  She went on to work in television with such stars as Elvis Presley before forming a production company in London with Judd Bernardin.

Like so many of us Patricia is a fan of Monty Python’s wicked humor and in 1971 she produced the Python’s feature film And Now for Something Completely Different.  Patricia is currently preparing a film project in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

 

I have not seen the Monty Python film since it was first released.  This hilarious collection of the of Python’s best “twists, skits, and bits” from their popular television series coupled with a lot of zany Python animation was just as entertaining as when I first  saw it.  Following the film Patricia took to the stage to talk about her long career.  She also gave humorous insights to her work with the Pythons.

Besides the annual film festival FIKA is active all year long as part of Imaginarios del Sul, a partnership of cultural organizations who promote cultural activities throughout the Alentejo Region.  Each summer FIKA holds free outdoor screening in Evora’s large main square as well as weekly screenings year round at the Auditorio Soror Marianan and film presentations in schools in surrounding cities.  As part of this exchange all of the guests were taken to Beja, the second largest city in the region, for an evening screening of a competition program.

 

The Alentejo region is famous for its wines.  On our way to Beja we visited the Villa Dos Gamos wine co-operative where we toured the winey and sampled their award winning wines.  After our wine tastings we were all ready for lunch at the lovely little restaurant that the festival took us to.  The family style meal featured a delicious traditional dish of white beans and black pig meat simmered slowly with herbs and sausage.  Black pig is a specialty of the region.  The pigs get their unique flavour from grazing free range under oak trees and eating acorns exclusively on up at an acre of land per pig.  The area is also known for its olive trees and cork oaks, so each meal was accompanied by delicious olives and olive oil.  Known as the bread basket of Portugal, every meal also included delicious bread.

 

After lunch we visited the Castle of Baja.  Resting on Roman fortifications , the castle was rebuilt by King Dinis in 1310.  It has an imposing tower which is the symbol of the city of Beja.  It is also known for its battlements and a narrow walk way running around the upper exterior floor.  There are three floors and the upper floor is reached by a 183 degree spiral staircase.   Nik climbed the narrow stairs up to the top room of the tall turret and said that the acoustics were perfect inside as an echo chamber.

Another afternoon we were all taken to Monte de Graciere, a restaurant  outside of the city.  It was packed with local people dining from the massive buffet tables ladened with black pig prepared every way imaginable. I really wish that I had had two stomachs because I would have loved to have been able to eat even more of the delicious dishes that I stuffed myself with.

Festival guests stayed at the newly renovated Moov Hotel which is located in the former bull ring.  Our room was extremely large with round interior walls.  There was a large circular open air interior courtyard where we could enjoy our breakfast.

Nik and I were fortunate enough to be invited to stay in Evora for two extra days after the festival which gave us the opportunity to explore the city.  We visited A Capela dos Ossos, the Chapel of Bones, close to our hotel.  The inscription over the door reads “The bones within these doors will soon be joined by yours”.  It contains the remains of over 5,000 skeletons which cover the interior walls of the chapel.  The bones are not the product of a macabre massacre but are purported to be the result of a shortage of burial space on the square in front of the 17^th Century Church of Saint Francis.  The Franciscan monks, in keeping with a macabre spirit of the times, unearthed the skeletons and placed them in the chapel bone by bone.  The monks used the chapel as a retreat for prayer and contemplation and it is an amazing sight to see.

 

The local open air market is located near the chapel along with several small restaurants which we enjoyed sampling during our time in Evora.  After a relaxed lunch we visited the ruins of the Roman temple built to Diana in the first century on the highest hill in the city.  After a break from sightseeing to enjoy a cold beer in the park opposite the temple we took in the view of the Roman aqueduct from the edge of the park before meandering down the winding streets into the old Moorish quarter of the city and then back to the town square.

 

The next day our host Joao Paulo Macedo took Nik and I on a tour of the surrounding country side.  First we visited the impressive Algueva Dam which opened in 2010.  The complex project, built to produce hydroelectric power for irrigation of the arid farm land in the surrounding area, created the largest reservoir in Western Europe.  It also provides a large recreational area.  Joao Paulo told us that when the valley was flooded the farmers who lived in the valley along with the olive groves were relocated to the village of Algueva on high ground above the dam.

 

After a drive through a countryside dotted with cork and olive trees we were treated to another truly delicious meal at a small family run restaurant in a village where our host has dined with his family since he was a boy.  As we ate the delicious caren porco with white beans, creamy goat cheese that is made at the restaurant, and olives, we were made to feel like family too.  With the meal we drank delicious wine made by the restaurant.  The wine is made for local residents and patrons of the restaurants and not for sale to the general public.

 

Our final destination was the  located a short distance North of Evora near the town of Guadalupe.  This is the sight of the biggest group of menhir, large upright standing stones, on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the largest sites in Europe dating back to the 5^th millennium BC.  Situated on a hillside among olive and cork trees the 95 standing stones are arranged in an oval.  The exact purpose of the site is unknown but it is theorized that it is astronomically and geometrically aligned and it was probably used for sacred rituals of some sort.  Some of the stones are also engraved with designs.  Seeing the menhir in the sunset was a beautiful experience.

 

That evening we had a lovely farewell dinner.  The next day we were off to the airport.  Joao Paul had one last surprise in store for us on our hour long drive to the Lisbon Airport.  We stopped in a small village that is famous for its black pork sandwiches. They were a delicious treat indeed.

As we sat in a sunny outdoor café at the airport Nik and I had a last glass of delicious Portuguese wine and a Pastel da Nata, a traditional custard filled pastry with a crispy, flakey crust, as we reflected on the wonderful time we had at FIKE  and how much we would miss Evora.

There are no words to adequately thank Joao Paulo Macedo who is a wonderful host and his fantastic staff for their friendship and hospitality.  I urge all animators to submit their films for the 2015 edition of the festival and encourage anyone who is lucky enough to be invited to FIKE to accept the invitation because you will have a wonderful time.  You can learn more about the festival at:

www.fikeonline.net

My next trip was to the KLIK International Animation Festival in Amsterdam.  My next article will be about my adventures there.

FIKE 2014 FILM AWARDS

Best Fiction Film – Travelers in The Night – Ena Sendijarevic, The Netherlands

Best Fiction Jury Special Mention – The Neighbor – Alexandra Galoa Burca, Romania

Best Animation Film – Canis – Anna Solanas and Marc Riba, Spain

Best Animation Jury Special Mention – Virtuos Virtuell – Thomas Stellmach and Maja Oschmann, Germany

FIKE/Estacao Image Award for Best Docummentary – Cutting Grass – Aier Altunas, Spain

Best Documentary Jury Special Mention – The Being from Elsewhere ­– Guy Bordin and Renaud De Putter, Belgium

Best Portiguese Film – O Coveiro – Andre Gil Mata – Portugal

Best European Film – Daphne or the Lovely Speciman – Sebastien Laudenbach and Sylvain Derosne, France

Best Screenplay – To Cut A Long Story Short – Marco Esporoto Santo, Portugal

Best Cinematography – Touch of Silence – Sven Philipp Pohl, Germany

Best Acting – Matilde  - Vito Palmieri, Italy

Audience Award – Ants Apartment – Tofoq Amani, Iraq

FICC JURY AWARDS

Don Quixote Award – Matilde –Vito Palnieri, Italy

Jury Special Mention – The Being from Elsewhere – Guy Bordin and Renaud De Putter, Belgium