Beyond the mountains with guest selector Neil Young
In this program note, guest selector Neil Young outlines his concept for the international competition at AFV 2023. There are hills, there are mountains, from the rivers, to the seas...
“Dèyè mòn, gen mon.” (“Beyond mountains, there are mountains" / "Иза планине, постоје планине") — Haitian proverb
This year’s competition includes 36 films from 26 different countries, shown in three competition programmes across three evenings, each composed of two sections. Together they offer a representative panorama of current adventurous filmmaking from all over the world.
Each of the first five “blocks” is named after a famous Serbian mountain: Avala, Jelica, Povlen, Golija and Stara Planina. Avala (511m) is one of the lowest mountains in Serbia, you can see it on the outskirts of Belgrade on a low-smog day. Stara Planina (2170m), on the Bulgarian border, is the country’s highest point. Jelica, Povlen and Golija are 992m, 1347m and 1833m respectively.
I chose these names not because any of the films deal with mountains (they don’t!), rather because I arranged the five programmes in steadily ascending order of…. OK, let’s say “difficulty” (according to my own purely subjective, only semi-expert assessments of same )
The basic idea is that viewers who aren’t so familiar with experimental and avant-garde filmmaking can start with the “gentlest” slopes, and gradually tackle more “challenging” material until they reach the lofty altitudes of the Stara Planina programme. (Needless to say, you don’t need to watch this quintet from the start, you can come in at any juncture!)
The first five programmes comprise between six and eight films apiece. I believe short films of all types and genres should be indeed short, which is how I’ve managed to include an unusual number of films (according to my calculations 36 is the highest total for the competition since 2015) while making the running-time each evening relatively brief: less than 80 minutes for the first two days. And this means I was able to find space for one decidedly long short film, which takes up the entirety of the final programme and which brings us all right back down to sea level.
Happy climbing!