Tampere Film Festival, 7 - 11 March 2001:
Surprise from the East in International Competition

69 films were selected for the International Competition at Tampere Film Festival, fourteen of which are directorial débuts. 37 countries are represented, including first-timers in the competition, Puerto Rico and Thailand. The sole Finnish film to make it into the competition was The Diver by PV Lehtinen.

Approximately 2.000 films were viewed in the course of the selection process. The number of submissions went down slightly from last year; this may be a result of the increased average length of the films. The level of quality was uniformly high. Fewer animations were submitted than before. However, the number of animations selected, twenty, was nearly as high as last year. The quality of the animations was moderately good. Among the submitted animations there were many high-quality works, for example those directed by Garri Bardin, Oksana Cherkasova, Ferenc Cako, Paul Driessen, Zbigniew Kotecki, Jerzy Kucia, Georg Schwitzgebel and the Quay Brothers.

The number of documentaries submitted went down from last year; on the other hand, the quality was higher. 21 documentaries were selected for the competition. It was the committee's opinion that documentaries fared clearly better this year than animations did. The majority of the documentaries came from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and Iran. Both the number and the diversity of Russian films were surprising; a wholly new kind of documentary from Russia was seen this year. The best of the documentaries tackled such topics as the consequences of the urban way of life, the culture and lifeblood of native peoples, and the 20th Century history. Fresh reflections of the conflicts in the Balkans were also seen.

This year saw the quality of Finnish short film take a nosedive compared to preceding years. While last year six Finnish films were selected for the International Competition, this year the only Finnish film to make the grade was The Diver (2000). This documentary by PV Lehtinen focuses on Helge Wasenius (b. 1927), the grand old man of diving, a two-time Olympic athlete and a clown diver. The film is a paean to diving and the aesthetics of movement.

Once again, the fiction shorts far outnumbered all other types of film: over 800 fiction films were submitted. There was great variety in the quality. A number of remarkably mature and promising films by film school students were included. The selected 28 high-quality fiction shorts include films by both first-time directors and seasoned professionals; the styles vary from the traditional to the genre-bending to the refreshingly experimental.

The members of the International Competition selection committee were Elizabeth Marschan (chair of the committee), a selection committee veteran; film aficionado Simojukka Ruippo; and Jukka-Pekka Laakso, the director of the Pirkanmaa Film Centre. The works included in the International Competition are screened in the Small Auditorium of Tampere Hall on 7 - 10 March 2001.

Inquiries:
Maria Silander
Press and Publicity
Tampere Film Festival
+358 3 223 5188
+358 500 947 597
press@tamperefilmfestival.fi