For the second year in a row SPOT was rounded off with the culmination of SPOT Film. With 32 films, music videos, an award show, and 5-600 guests it was a great way of ending this year’s SPOT Festival
On both Friday and Saturday SPOT Film boasted an abundance of film seminars, special screenings, pitching, workshops, and network meetings. The grand finale was, Sunday, however, when Øst for Paradis (‘East of Eden’ – the arthouse cinema of Aarhus) was turned into a vibrant festival area with film as the pivotal element.
Head of Filmby Aarhus, which co-organizes SPOT Film, Carsten Holst summed up SPOT Film 2015 this way,
”This is just our second year as a film festival, and we have already established ourselves as a festival with a clear and unique profile. I think we can look back at a smoothly organized and discerning film festival. And actually that is also the response I get from the audience, the jury and people from the Scandinavian film scenes.”
Enthusiastic Janus Metz
The Danish director Janus Metz, (Armadillo) was a prominent figure at this year’s SPOT Festival with a Q&A in the seminar programme and a seat in the Jury along with fellow director Pernille Fischer Christensen (En Soap, which won Best Debut Film in Berlin 2006) and Chris Tidman, a London-based short film distributor who deals with the American market). They decided to give the two SPOT Film Awards to the fiction film Ártún and the documentary Skin and Bones (read more about the winners here).
When asked about his impression of the festival, Metz said,
“It seems to be an extremely well-organised festival with great films at a high level, and on top of that we have had the opportunity to hear some great music too. It has definitely been a pleasure for us, and I’m quite certain that this festival has a great future ahead of it”.
Metz’s fellow jury member Chris Tidman, agreed with him and added,
“The level of curation has been impressive. We have seen some quality films, and it’s really nice that the festival is like a contained unit with both music and film”.