Encounters 2018: from Wallace & Gromit to taste-free shorts and a spooky outdoor screening in Boiling Wells

If you were to watch all the submissions to the Encounters film festival, it would take about a month. But only if you did so 24 hours a day without a break. After 24 years, Bristol’s very own short film festival is firmly established on the international circuit, which is why filmmakers are clamouring to get their work shown.

In an office at the top of Encounters Towers (aka the Bristol Festivals building), the team is gearing up for this year’s fest, which comprises a mammoth 232 events over six days.

“When I started doing this we’d get DVDs through the post,” recalls festival director Rich Warren. “We’d have a team of people who’d come and pick up a crate load and go home to watch them.

“We were getting 800 to 900 submissions back then. That’s changed dramatically with the digital revolution and it’s now done online, which makes it easier to submit to festivals. So we’re getting just under 3,500 submissions from all over the world.”

Encounters festival director Rich Warren

These are divided up between three selection teams, who watch every single film submitted. Animation and live action were joined last year by a VR strand, though Rich acknowledges that the jury’s still out on whether this will prove to be anything more than a fad.

“There’s enough interesting enough stuff being done to warrant it having place at the festival. Encounters is all about innovation and showcasing new and emerging talent. You can’t ignore what’s happening with digital technology – otherwise you run the risk of becoming a museum.

“What we’re finding is that a lot of the creative talents that we’re showcasing at the festival aren’t limiting themselves to screen-based traditional cinema.”

https://youtu.be/beAcj_XNt78

So what are the selectors looking for? “The hardest film to watch is the first one because the bar hasn’t been set. We’re looking for three things. The first is a good film. Second – is it going to be good for the Encounters audience, who are there to see innovation? I always like to say that short film is where film begins. Every innovation that has taken place throughout the history of cinema has come from a short film.

“And the final thing is, what we can do for the talent? Who will benefit from screening at the festival? If we’ve got to choose between two filmmakers where one is a very established and the other is a newcomer with no support network, we’ll always pick the new talent.”

Rich acknowledges that short film is a hard sell and that much of the Encounters audience comprises cinephiles. But with an average of 74 per cent capacity filled, the festival has clearly achieved a level of trust that means people are happy to take a punt on its many mixed and themed programmes.

This year’s lineup is still being firmed up, but there’s no shortage of highlights to look out for. Bristol animation is well represented, with the new scratch’n’sniff edition of Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and the welcome return of the bolexbrothers’ macabre 1993 classic The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb.

There will also be a presentation of footage from the innovative new 2D/3D Moominvalley TV series, due for broadcast next year, which is currently being filmed at Gutsy Animations’ Long Ashton studio.

The director is Oscar-winner Steve Box, who co-directed The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for Aardman, and the starry voice cast includes Rosemund Pike, Kate Winslet, Matt Berry, Taron Egerton and, er, Will Self.

Encounters is also teaming up with Compass Presents for an immersive screening of spooky archive compilation Arcadia in the Boiling Wells Amphitheatre in the wilds of St Werburgh’s.

There are country focuses on Ghanaian animation, Latvian animation, Georgian animation (celebrating the 30th anniversary of Bristol’s twinning with Tbilisi) and Italian Horror (including a full screening of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath).

Over at the Arnolfini, PunjabTronix is a fusion of electronic music and Punjab folk, with visual projections.

PunjabTronix

We can also expect an extended Shorts2Features programme and, of course, the legendary outré Late Lounge selections, which have this year been expanded to fill three themed programmes: Horror, Body Parts (including Hooves of Clay, directed by Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison) and Peep Show.

Clearly, these should be avoided by the ever growing ranks of the Easily Offended, but the Encounters audience tends to be pretty liberal. “They’re okay with being offended if you chuck in a couple of Trump digs,” jokes Rich.

But has Rich ever turned down a film for being too disgusting? “I’ve turned stuff down because it’s disgusting and not very good,” he says after a long pause.

“With short film, you haven’t got the money men in the background. So what you get is an explosion of creativity. You get to see into the minds of people. They’re trying stuff that they couldn’t get away with in a feature film because a puppet master will say, ‘Oh no, you can’t do that. Someone will get upset…'”

Consider that a warning!

Encounters 2018 runs from September 25-30. For more information, visit www.encounters-festival.org.uk