Selection of student films at the San Sebastian Festival for Caméflex-AFC 2016

By Dominique Gentil, AFC

par Dominique Gentil La Lettre AFC n°258

[ English ] [ français ]

Thanks to the initiative of Alain Coiffier, for the second year in a row, AFC cinematographers were invited to participate in the San Sebastian Festival. This invitation allowed us to attend the screenings of the Student Film section (“14th International Film Student Meeting”) in order to choose films that will be screened at the Grand Action Cinema from 9-11 February 2016, as part of Caméflex-AFC, which will be held this year on the theme of “The Transmission of Knowledge”.
Gérard de Battista, 3rd on the right, the students winners and Olivier Affre (Panavision Alga Paris), far left - DR
Gérard de Battista, 3rd on the right, the students winners and Olivier Affre (Panavision Alga Paris), far left
DR

For four days, Gérard de Battista, Rémy Chevrin, and myself viewed forty films and selected five of them. In making our selection for Caméflex-AFC, an event dedicated to the work of cinematographers, we paid particular attention to the visuals and to the cinematography.

It was marvellous to observe how the mind-set and the teaching of the schools were visible on screen in these films, final projects before graduation. One doesn’t make the same film when one has graduated from Bratislava or from the National Film School of London. Most of these films were produced with a very limited budget (very short shooting time, modest cameras), but stood out because of their personal, real, and often moving perspective.

The diversity of these schools, be they Latin American, Israeli, European (German, English, Belgian, Slovakian), belied the universality of that community of young cinematographers who share the common energy and desire to direct films. Listening to these students tell us about their work, we observed how well they were able to defend their projects, using strength and imagination to expand the boundaries of the framework in which they had to work. That is truly what it means to become a cinematographer…

[LEGENDE : Award Ceremony of the “14th International Film Student Meeting”]

Selected Films
- Groupe B, by Nick Rowland – National Film and Television School (Great Britain).
- Los parajaros miran hacia el norte, by Pepe Gutiérrez – Centro Universitario de estudios cinematográficos (Mexico).
- Wada (Prediction), by Khaled Mzher, DFFB-Deutsche film und Fernsehakademie Berlin (Germany).
- Francesca, by Sebastien Palominos – Instituto profesionál Arcos (Chile).
- Strach (Fear), by Mihal Blasko – The Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava (Slovakia).

Translated from French by Alex Raiffe.