To mark the tenth anniversary of GSFF, we’ve carried out a series of interviews with some of our many volunteers, staff members and other contributors over the years, asking them for their most memorable festival films and moments. In this second instalment we spoke with:
Sven Schwarz, Member of A Wall Is A Screen and Curator of Black and Light GSFF 2016. Sven is the Managing Director of Hamburg International Short Film Festival.
Christoffer Olofsson, GSFF 2015 Jury member and the Curator of GSFF programme The Sum of All Fears in 2016. Christoffer is the Programme Director for Uppsala International Short Film Festival, Sweden.
Jamie Dunn, GSFF 2013 Submissions Viewer and Film Editor at The Skinny.
Alba Cruells Roger, GSFF 2012 Festival Assistant, now Audiovisual Producer, Kids&US.
To mark the tenth anniversary of GSFF, we’ve carried out a series of interviews with some of our many volunteers, staff members and other contributors over the years, asking them for their most memorable festival films and moments. In this second instalment we spoke with:
Sven Schwarz, Member of A Wall Is A Screen and Curator of Black and Light GSFF 2016. Sven is the Managing Director of Hamburg International Short Film Festival.
Christoffer Olofsson, GSFF 2015 Jury member and the Curator of GSFF programme The Sum of All Fears in 2016. Christoffer is the Programme Director for Uppsala International Short Film Festival, Sweden.
Jamie Dunn, GSFF 2013 Submissions Viewer and Film Editor at The Skinny.
Alba Cruells Roger, GSFF 2012 Festival Assistant, now Audiovisual Producer, Kids&US.
Jamie: I often recall GSFF’s deeply moving screening of Space & Light Revisited, Murray Grigor’s shot-for-shot remake of his own film from 1972 exploring the architectural wonder that is St Peter’s Seminary.
The presentation of the film was extraordinary. The CCA theatre was set up with two screens side-by-side. On the left, above a newly-lit candle, played the earlier film, evocatively shot on grainy 16mm, showing the seminary, a surreal modernist building plonked in the middle of a Cardross forest, in its mint fresh glory, with fresh-faced trainee priests milling around its strangely serene stairways and halls.
On the right, above a candle burned down to the base, shot in I believe digital black and white by Seamus McGarvey, the remake showed the seminary as it is today: dilapidated, vandalised, graffiti strewn, the elements breaking in.
I loved the drama of it (the candles!), the shock of the contrast. It remains one of the most vivid explorations of time, ageing and decay I have ever seen. The post-film Q&A revealed the audience to be full of architecture students and lecturers from the School of Art, and they clearly felt they’d just watched a snuff movie.
Alba: There were several films that I watched in 2012 that stuck with me. And I think it was the whole compilation that made me see how interesting the short movies are. I remember several short movies like Long Distance Information, by Douglas Hart, Las Palmas by Johannes Nyholm or that year’s winner, the beautiful Fini. I remember them because they made me appreciate how someone can explain something really intense in a short time, with a great script or idea. I have good memories of the remake of Richard Linklater’s Slacker. I met the producer Daniel Metz and I really enjoyed this movie made of short movies.
Sven: Funnily enough the film that stuck with me was the first film I saw at GSFF. In Screendown we were all surprised to see the silver screen on the silver screen being taking down. Screened in GFT Cinema 1 and showing in 1:1 scale the removing of that same screen, the literally unique site specific projection amazed me. It was truly the only place this film could be adequately screened, unless you find a screen with the exact same size somewhere in the world.
What was your most memorable GSFF encounter?
Christoffer: Now, if you’ve been to the GSFF before, you know that the team only invites good and friendly and wholesome (OK, so maybe scratch that last bit) people. If this is your first time here consider yourself included in that exclusive company and if you’re trying to get invited, now you know what it takes. Of course that makes it endlessly difficult to choose between all the indelible encounters with fellow jurors, panellists, filmmakers and locals I’ve had over the two years I’ve attended the fest so far. On the other hand, have you ever crashed your front teeth into Glasgow cobblestone? Do you know what sound it makes inside your head when the teeth break? Didn’t think so. Let me tell you, as far as memorable encounters go, a swift meeting between teeth and cobblestone is hard to top. In my Glasgow experience, it can only be topped be a very helpful GSFF Festival Director standing in front of you, examining your bloodied mouth, and for some inexplicable reason finding it hard to keep from cracking a smile.
Jamie: I remember getting very drunk with Mark Cousins – who I was a big fan of from his Moviedrome and Scene-by-scene days – after a brilliant double-bill of Cynthia Beatt’s Cycling the Frame and The Invisible Frame, and hearing a pretty hair curling, blush-inducing story about a Hollywood legend that I better not repeat here.
Tell me about your finest GSFF experiences…
Christoffer: Apart from the people, programmes and cobblestones of Glasgow, one of the most notable aspects of GSFF is the festival’s take on Event Cinema, which is profoundly artistic and truly inspirational. Vertical Cinema transformed former fish market The Briggait into a spiritual space (with pillows) and the follow-up of Cinema of Transgression films at the Glue Factory reached a spectacular climax in the penetrative 16mm double projection of Nick Zedd’s Whoregasm that I will cherish forever. Having now emphasised these two very phallic events, I feel we all need to compensate, possibly collectively. I’m very sorry for not being able to attend this year but if the GSFF team were to kindly reschedule this year’s promising programme When I Say Vagina… for, say St Mungo’s Cathedral, that’d be one spiritual space I’d sure as hell come running for.
Alba: The most memorable experience was the awards night. During the day we met the directors and it was nice to see them talking about their movies, where you got further inside their films. So, on the awards night it was exciting to see their happiness when they won something. I special remember the director of Fini, Jacob Secher Schulsinger. Fini shows his grandpa’s illness in a funny and tender way. He was really moved to win the award.
Jamie: I adored A Wall Is A Screen, from a few years ago. It managed to take two activities which are inherently lame – outdoor screenings and walking tours – and cut-and-shut them together to make something thrilling.
The event saw a group of us snaked around the north end of Glasgow’s city centre with a projector in tow, appropriating concrete and brick walls and turning them into cinema screens. There was something subversive about the whole thing, like we were a gang of cinema bandits putting these commercial spaces to more worthwhile use.
At the start of the night it felt like we had a few dozen people, but by the final screening against Buchanan Galleries we had a party of almost 600, many of them randoms who’d confusedly joined the throng along the way. A Wall Is A Screen is back this year, and I won’t miss it. I’ll even remember to bring a warm jacket and a pair of gloves this time.
By Amelia Seely