So, I’ve only just got home – from Dresden to Berlin, a two-hour train journey – and now I’m going to tell you a bit about what it was like this year at one of my favourite little film festivals, the Dresden Schmalfilmtage / Narrow-Gauge Film Festival!
It’s a festival put together with love, and there are always strange and rare films to be seen in the various programmes that you’re guaranteed not to see anywhere else. All the films shown were shot on analogue film, i.e. on 8 or 16 mm, but were mostly screened digitally.
Dresden already had a hint of spring in the air; I even felt a Mediterranean breeze, but the nights were cold. Still, we loved sitting outside at the tables during the breaks with beer, wine and cigarettes, getting lost in film discussions – I love talking about Super 8 in such a nerdy way!
I love: the view from my hotel, Russian vareniki, night-time road repairers, fabric flowers, quirky little machines, brutalist buildings, all the films shown, and all my film mates!
Oh, and what was really hilarious: this year they’d used an AI translator to translate the live announcements in real time, from English to German and vice versa. In two years’ time it’ll no doubt work perfectly, but this time the poor AI really struggled and spouted some wonderful blunders and unintentionally brilliant poetry!
Click, it’s a film:
Breakfast this morning, organizers and film makers:
