Encounters Film Festival: Events and Interactions

Since the festival was held online instead of in person like previous years, the festival held individual events and uploaded Q&A’s with filmmakers to make up for the live panels and networking areas that we would have missed. There was a mixture of videos, twitter updates and live online hangouts.

I was expecting the events to be more interactive and held live, such as the Q&As with filmmakers, so that we could ask questions ourselves if topics we were interested in didn’t come up, however Encounters uploaded pre-recorded videos instead. After hearing what Rich Warren, the CEO, said on the matter, they chose to present the Q&As in this format due to not wanting to limit the viewing time. So while I couldn’t ask questions live, Encounters had included the filmmakers contact email so that we could reach out if we had any dire questions. One improvement I would wish for them to consider is using YouTube premieres, this way they still have pre recorded videos, but there is a chance of having a live audience who can make comments, the filmmakers can also choose to be in chat and interact with viewers. I watched two Q&As, one that was accompanied by a playlist, and one I went out of my way to find as I enjoyed one film so much I wanted to hear more about it.

My first Q&A was for the Great Outdoors playlist. The filmmakers of In the Woods and The Thing That Ate The Birds were interviewed by Rich Warren. The interview was 40 minutes long, switching between the two filmmakers answering questions. The discussions were interesting as both films had two very different processes, In the Woods was filmed as a student project during the middle of COVID lockdown in Croatia, whereas The Things That Ate The Birds was filmed pre-COVID, and was only delayed in the editing stage because of studios closing. https://vimeo.com/597885455?origin=61489388adea681faf50b8a4

Some interesting things I learnt about the film In the Woods, was that the filmmaker, Sara, decided to film on film, but due to her small student budget, she could only afford so much film. Her process was to film the whole thing digitally, use that to decide on which shots she liked the most, and then assign a maximum of takes for each shot. This is such an interesting process to go about, one that I may not have thought of, or would have decided was too much hassle. I commend her patience to learn how to shoot on film in such a short time and then put in that preparation for the shoot. I think all that effort was worth it.

The Things That Ate The Birds was actually funded by the Bristol South West BFI Network and Watch Alter, a horror platform. While they didn’t fully explain how this partnership started, they did mention that future work with these organisations was possible again. This interview with Sophie and Dan, the filmmakers, helped me understand the film better. There were undertones of commentary about Brexit. While I necessarily didn’t enjoy this film, due to its genre, it was fascinating to find out about the meaning behind the story and brought more understanding to me that I didn’t have before.

While I did love hearing from these filmmakers, I felt like I was missing out. From the playlist my favourites were A Little Bit of Paradise and Zonder Meer, the two filmmakers that weren’t interviewed. Now this may have been because they were unable to attend or because of a language barrier, but it was a little upsetting to not hear from every filmmaker, especially the Zonder Meer director, who won an award at Encounters.

Rich Warren at the end then asked about any future projects. Sara, still a student, said she would be working on her next university project, hoping to experiment in different styles again. As a film student, seeing other film students makes me hopeful on what I can achieve too. Whereas Sophie and Dan, who have made many previous films, were working on finding funding for their next project. This is where Rich voiced that potential investors may be watching and may reach out. This setting for filmmakers seems to be ideal, if your film gets screened at the festival, there are many investors who wish to help you on your next project. It’s good to know that even with the festival being online, that networking aspect is still prevalent in the festival.

Another Q&A I watched was The Past Within interview. I had not watched this playlist but just watched one film, In The Space You Left. I enjoyed this film so much that I searched through all the playlists to find and hope that there was an interview with the filmmaker. I felt like a big improvement to the website's interface was to add a button to the individual synopsis to the filmmakers interview if they had one, to avoid me searching through all

the playlists. This small improvement could have helped a lot of others find the video and perhaps be interested in what a specific filmmaker has to say. https://vimeo.com/599144414?origin=61489388adea681faf50b8a4

I mostly just focused on the filmmaker of In The Space You Left for this interview. Since this film was more personal than most, it was interesting to hear Christine Saab’s thoughts and process on her documentary. This interview was less specific in the how, and instead focused more on the why? Christine also discussed what her next project will be: an interactive piece about the roots under trees and their networking capabilities. While she didn’t go into too much detail, it did spike an interest for me. I believe the “next project” question was an important addition, as people can hear about upcoming stuff and decide to keep up to date with filmmakers. It gives a chance for filmmakers to build a fanbase of some sorts, and of course give them a chance of getting noticed by investors or important industry representatives.

After watching a second Q&A, I noticed all the questions were very similar to the first one. While it was nice to have basic questions that would be asked to all the filmmakers, I did wish that the interviewer would build upon everyone’s answers and ask some more personal questions. I also felt like the Q&A session could have been longer depending on how many people were in the group, as they felt too short. For example the The Past Within Q&A, there were four filmmakers, as opposed to the two filmmakers from the Great Outdoors Q&A. By the time everyone answered the question, things were moved on quickly and things felt rushed, in a way it all felt artificial. I was hoping for a more in depth interview with the filmmakers.

Encounters did include contact details for each filmmaker on their individual film page. This was a great opportunity for audience members and industry representatives to reach out to filmmakers that stood out to them. I decided to reach out and email Christine Saab, filmmaker of In The Space You Left. At the time, I was preparing to make a documentary and since her documentary moved me and inspired me a lot, I wanted to reach out to compliment her and ask for some advice. I wanted to know about how she figured out how to structure her film, when to have breaks and when to move on. I felt stuck in my own project at the time and needed some help. She was kind enough to respond to my email and offered me a zoom call to discuss my project and what she could suggest to me. This was a great opportunity for me to talk with someone outside of my peers and lecturers. As someone else who was also a student, but had managed to get her foot into the door, she was inspiring to me. We exchanged a few emails back and forth discussing the details before we settled on a call where we could talk.

Encounters set up the contacts as a great opportunity. There was no segregation on who could contact filmmakers, you didn’t have to be someone networking or an investor, you could be just a regular viewer who had some questions or just wanted to compliment a film personally. Just like how I was happy to see a response to my email, I’m sure a filmmaker receiving emails regarding their films would be a proud moment for them. With everything being online there was no chance for a face to face discussion and interaction between viewer and filmmakers so this was a good compromise.

The only live interactive event Encounters held was a live hangout event. This was a portable space where people could long in, create an avatar and talk with filmmakers. The hangout was similar to a zoom call but with its interactive aspect and the portal being a digital spaceship, it made the whole interaction a lot more interesting. The spaceship included different rooms, tables where “private conversations” could be held, options for people to decorate the ship and a “mini arcade” where you could play Tetris. From a discussion with Rich Warren, CEO,

it was revealed that this hangout was originally only set out for filmmakers to attend but a last moment decision was made to let all festival attendees join. I’m glad the decision was made as when I joined I could interact with two student filmmakers who had entered the festival. The duo discussed their films and their thoughts and process behind it. This was like the pre-recorded Q&A videos I had watched, but in a much more casual setting and with the chance for me to join in and ask any questions that I had.

The downside of this digital hangout space however was that the organisation of the event was poor. Not many people showed up and when they did there was confusion about what was happening. In an Encounter’s email, it was described as discussions and the award show reveal. However, once I had logged in, not many people showed up and the award show was a link to their webpage showing the awards in a random order and without specific timing. This part of the hangout was very disappointing and I believe it could have been improved a lot. From discussions that I heard, I was not the only person confused on what was going on. I think Encounters should have explained the premise of the hangout a lot more, because by the end, I had wished that it was a simple zoom call with the organisers and filmmakers as they announce the awards live.

In the end, the events held by Encounters this year to accompany the short films felt a bit lacklustre to me. The communication was missing as the Q&As would be uploaded randomly, although they were listed on a schedule, it was kept to. There were very few live events held and the ones that were, were clouded in confusion with what was expected of us. The awards were also announced with no warning and at seemingly random times. The award announcements were hard to find and mostly on twitter, where Encounters seemed to have their least interactive platform. I understand that a festival online is hard to run and difficult to organise, however there could be many improvements in event organisation and website management.