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Tag archives for Tussilago

This is the end. My only friend, the end

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Ladies and gentleman, the festival is over. The winners have been crowned and Elvis has left the building. This year has been a great one. Fantastic films, more people and just a great atmosphere. So without further ado, I present to you this years winners.

The Cage (Colivia) by Adrian Sitaru won the international prize for best film or the Uppsala Grand Prix as it’s known around the water coolers. Not only does Mr. Sitaru go home with the Uppsala Film Jackdaw award, he also leaves 25 000 Swedish kronor richer. The Cage is a great little film where a young boy finds a injured pigeon and wants to keep it but his father refuses. I never thought this would win, but after hearing the jury’s reason it all made sense.

“A beautifully simple and simply beautiful tale of a father’s love for his son, that is shrouded in musicality whilst never leaving the confines of the characters’ apartment. With a perfectly judged pace and tone this is short film making at its finest.”

The people have also spoken. The Cage was crowned by a jury but then we have the peoples vote. And as I consider myself more of a man of the people than a man of the jury (wow, that was very John Grisham of me) I found this result more interesting. The winner of the Audience Award for best international film was Tussilago. When I heard that I gave myself a mental high-five. I was worried that my predictions in my previous post would crumble like a house of cards but when Tussilago by Jonas Odell was called out it was all good.

On the Swedish front the winner for best film was Not Panic (Ingen Panik) by Elisabeth Marjanovic’ Cronvall. Once again, a film I really enjoyed but thought nothing else to it. However after seeing it again I really understood what the jury meant with their motivation:

“We don’t know exactly what we are watching, and we like that. The future is wide open and uncertain, and you’re not to panic Head on, with all systems go and a strong sense for detail, the films portrays a group of young people on their way into the adult world where everything is possible; you can become an underwater-welder, a baker, drive a really huge excavator or become an actor. And the adults aren’t turned into clichés either.”

The Swedish Audience Award went to Miss Remarkable And Her Career (Fröken Märkvärdig och Karriären) by Joanna Rubin Dranger. This is an animated film that really got loved by a lot of people. Was it my favourite? No but it’s still a damn good film and I’m very happy for the director.

Do you want to read about more winners you can visit the Uppsala Short Film Festival homepage and there you can find other winners like who won for best children’s film, best cinematography or the new prestigious Ingmar Bergman award. All with motivations and information about the people behind the film.

I want to sincerely congratulate all the winners of the festival for their great films but I would also want to take the time and applaud all film makers that managed to get their films into the festival. I wish you all the luck in the future and hopefully I’ll see you next year when Uppsala Short Film Festival turns 30 years old. I’ll bring the cake!

Signing out from Uppsala.

Chris Gardner - Film

October 31, 2010

The wait is soon over

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Half the day has now passed and I’ve managed to consume about 12 films so far. After the festival I’ll be doing a ”Best of” kind of thing and go through the highs and lows of the festival. This will also include fun categories as best silent film, best looking film, best Swedish and so on. I’ll even throw in some fun stats like how often I fell asleep or found myself wanting to run for the emergency exit (don’t worry, it didn’t happen often). The festival is really keeping a high standard this year. Last year I managed to pick out the festival winner after only two days and bagged myself an interview with them before the winner was announced. This year it’s much harder.

Later tonight the winners will be announced. Going through the films there really aren’t many that go far and beyond the others. That’s a true sign of quality. However if I had to guess I would go with the following films.

Tussilago for best Swedish film. This is the one I want to win. Will it? Maybe not since it’s animated and pretty fast paced so I can see that a lot of people wont see the appeal and greatness that I found in it. It also competes on a International level but there I think the ones with more meaty stories will come out on top. Second runner up is Autumn Man, this quirky story is one of a kind and a fun little film. In third place I would say Incident By a Bank. Technically this is the most impressive film coming out of the festival. My favorite documentary, I’m Painting Some Imagination, will probably go unnoticed.

For best international my money is on Samaritan from Norway. It’s one of the few great films I think most people in the audience can take in and digest. This is probably because it’s one of the few films with a real beginning, middle and end. Second runner up here is Bubbles, a Spanish film where a couple of girls think the bubbles from soda works as a birth control. Tied in third is Viki Ficki, where an 11 year old girl comes to terms that her mom is a porn star, and Dolls from Germany. Dolls brings up the subject of incest and child abuse. All these films do, in one way or another, have a three act structure. And even though I don’t feel that all films need this, I just see it easier for most people to take in and feel satisfied.

Here are the pictures I promised you from yesterdays Watch Awards.

The winner of the Watch Audience Award, Gabriela Pichler. Photo: Chris Gardner


The Watch award tries to make a run for it but doesn’t get far.

Chris Gardner - Film

October 30, 2010

A serious dose of Swedish film: part 1

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It’s getting cold outside but thank God the theaters are only a stone throw away from each other with a warm pub in between. Today has been a great day of film watching. It started off with some great international films from countries like Argentina, Hungary and Australia. The strongest film of the morning went to the Mexican film Dolls (Muñecas). This is maybe not the best film of the festival but without a doubt one of the heaviest and darkest. It’s impossible not to be affected by it and truly is a great piece of film making.

After that block of films I gave myself a nice two hour break. Gave myself a chance to look around and breath a little Uppsala air and one thing’s for sure. It’s small! I’ve been in bigger shopping malls during my visits in USA. But that doesn’t take away the fact that Uppsala really is a beautiful city. Actually, my “walkabout” wasn’t really to play tourist for a few hours. I was using the time to prepare for my next mission, to sit through 8 hours of film. And since I missed some Swedish films yesterday I felt this was my chance for redemption. I was going to watch 8 hours of SWEDISH film.

I need to clear something up with everybody. I can have a hard time with films that try too much to be something they’re not. In other words, pretentious films can really rub me the wrong way. However, since I’m not a hater I will instead focus on the better films (and hate the bad ones in silent).

The first Swedish film that really stood out for me was Tussilago by Jonas Odell. It’s the best animated film of the festival so far in my eyes and it tells a very interesting story about the west german terrorist Norbert Kröcher. The whole film is told from his girlfriends point of view. It’s very well made and feeds you information and animation constantly.

Another great one was Incident By A Bank (Händelse vid bank) by the director Ruben Östlund. The whole film is in one shoot and covers a bank robbery. In this film we have over 90 extras all doing different things so as a director Östlund really shows that he knows what he’s doing. It’s really impressive. I understand why he won the Gold Bear for best short at the Berlin film festival. It’s easy to say that this is a strong contender in winning Best Film here in Uppsala as well.

One film that I personally think no one should miss is I’m Painting Some Imagination (Jag målar lite fantasi). It’s a documentary about two mentally disabled people expressing themselves through art. One of them, Anette, does very basic drawings but gives away the different emotions she’s going through. The other artist, Johannes, really does amazing things. He paints and sculpts. One of the things he likes to do is paint his interpretation of classic pieces from artists like Da Vinci or Munch. The film is truly fascinating

To go through all of the greats and not so greats would result in a text of epic proportion so instead I thought why not divide it into two posts? So be patient. It will be continued.

Chris Gardner - Film

October 27, 2010