[Editorial] 2018 International Competition: surprises, rare gems and new entries from the worldwide scene
More than a world tour, the international competition paints an annual portrait of the contemporary world. Because its production times are shorter, the short film is the format that gives us the most current portrayal of our times. Their subjects question our society. We discover their characters as an intimate and universal echo of these times we live in. In 2018, 75 short films take us from one continent to another, from narrative to documentary, first films to works by well-known filmmakers. A first stop in Trump’s America, where Charles Manson recently died, Fry Day (Laura Moss) shows a young girl who comes to fatally meet the onlookers at the execution of a serial killer. A society faces its contradictions, with horror and also fascination at its own violence.
In Europe, from burlesque exchanges in Finland’s Parliament (Puheenvuor) to broken-down buildings in a Swiss suburb (Bonobo), decline is shown alongside furtive bursts of poetry. How others sees us, but also how we see ourselves – this was another subject seen in many competition films this year.
Transgressing old and rigid rules is the subject of Counterfeit Kunkoo (India), which follows the struggle of a divorced woman trying to find someone who will agree to rent an apartment to a divorcee. Playing with codes and cliches, but with humor, like in the German film Kleptomami, which challenges the image of the mother. Self-discovery, self-acceptance, or fighting one’s desires, like the adolescents in Sirene (The Netherlands) or Unnatural (United States). Films featuring places, too. Places where we live, but also places that live within us. Places we want to leave, so much so that we risk our lives. If the migration crisis has haunted many films for a number of years now, these works give us a very different perspective than what is shown on the evening news. We get a human point of view, and sometimes even a goat’s point of view, as in Magic Alps (Italy).
In sum, there are trips we take without having to, but simply for the pleasure of discovering new places. The International Competition takes us to the foggy mountains of Columbia, looks in on the stuffy nose of a young Korean, follows a British delinquent running away, visits a Moroccan pirated-DVD stand, sings melancholy songs of a Swedish menagerie and joins teenagers and their mixtapes in the land of Uncle Sam.
