Posted on: October 3, 2018 Posted by: Veronica Fontana Comments: 1

This year’s Amsterdam Independent Film Festival took place from the September 18 to September 20 Amsterdam’ Lab 111. Entry free, the festival focuses on niche movie production and prioritized a type of non-commercial, film production.

American actor Shai Shahar, known for his vocal talent in commercials, ad campaigns, radio jingles and animated films,introduced the main goal of the Independent Film Festival.“The aim of our organization and of this festival is to give young film-makers a venue without commercialization and to encourage young talents to emerge,” Shahar said. During the festival, Lab 111 played over 30 short films every evening from 90 countries. These films were produced by yet-to-be discovered film-makers, who explored  topics of humanity. At the first sight, the films seemed perfectionized or unintelligible due to their enigmatic and sibylline speech and their unique framing and slow rhythm. At a closer look, they triggered questions about human fragility, vulnerability and essence, with its fears and apprehensions.

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Francesco Smith, chemist and Kristina Doe, are two participants at the Amsterdam Independent Film Festival. For Doe, the festival represented a new way for young people to get exposure: “[the festival is] a platform for young people, a nice opportunity, a chance for them to come out and emerge”. Smith and Doe were very taken with the event and most likely they wanted to participate to other screenings of the festival. Veronica Fontana / The Amsterdammer

Despite the little publicity, the anti-mainstream project, the Independent Film Festival and its niche movies, gathered a moderate success. Participants were pleasantly surprised by the overall experience and were more than happy to come back the following festival day. “We will come tomorrow as well,” said Kristina Doe and Francesco Smith. The two visitors also appreciated the festival as the ideal start-up platform for the industry’s newcomers, “[The festival is] a young platform for young people, a nice opportunity, a chance for young people to come out,” said Doe and Smith.

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The festival embraces all kinds of film genres, such as short, feature, documentary or animation and also pays tribute to the American arthouse pioneer, Jim Jarmusch. Amsterdam Independent Film Festival put emphasis on providing an unique and intimate experience for both the film-makers and cinephiles to embrace together their passion for artistic expression. Veronica Fontana / The Amsterdammer

The laudable aim of spreading a different and parallel vision of movies without commercialization was obtained. Overall, the Independent Film Festival put the emphasis on providing an unique and intimate experience for both the film-makers and cinephiles to embrace their passion for artistic expression together.

 

Feature photo: Aakash Nair

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