Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 9, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
“How did you do that, Mr. Hitchcock?” Guest of honor Tippi Hedren speaks in the Festival Honors Salon about working with the old master of suspense. For almost two hours, the grand dame, who once became a star overnight with the film “The Birds”, reports on her work in front of and behind the camera. With this final programme highlight, the tenth eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival in Frankfurt comes to an end this evening.
Tenth eDIT Filmmaker’s Festival – organizers draw a positive balance
Shortly before the end of the festival, the organizers draw a positive balance: “It is an excellent stopover that we have now made here with the festival after ten years. The Filmmaker’s Festival has become a real brand, and that can certainly be expanded further,” patron Udo Corts, Hesse Minister for Science and Art, summarized. Thanks to the Filmmaker’s Festival, Frankfurt am Main becomes a platform for film and media professionals from all over the world once a year. 7016 spectators attended the various events this year, including 120 accredited journalists and more than 450 participants in the free young-talent seminars of eDIT: eDucation, twice as many as in the previous year.
Anniversary gala with Tippi Hedren: “It is a wonderful festival and a very beautiful atmosphere here.
The opening gala was full of surprises: Guest of honor Tippi Hedren was visibly impressed by a video message from the two Oscar winners Shirley MacLaine and Martin Landau. They once again recalled the director who so shaped style. Moved, Tippi Hedren, who owes her film career to Hitchcock, then accepted the Festival Honors for Alfred Hitchock (posthumously) from the hands of Hesse’s Minister-President Roland Koch. Hollywood star Tippi Hedren: “Many heartfelt thanks for this honor prize. I am convinced, that every film student should watch Alfred Hitchcock’s films films – image by image and sequence by sequence – in order to learn from one of the most significent directors. It is a wonderful festival, a very beautiful atmosphere and I thank all of you here in Germany.”
The musical star guest of the gala was Helen Schneider: She delighted the gala audience with her stage programme “a transformation from bob dylan to snow white by H.S.”, assembled especially for the Filmmaker’s Festival. After the concert, the guests from the international film and media industry continued celebrating merrily, made contacts and arranged new projects.
Festival director Sebastian Popp is pleased about the positive comments on the anniversary gala. After all, a gala for the Filmmaker’s Festival is always also a tightrope walk. “Expectations are high, and some would prefer the programme a little more avant-garde, others a little more contemplative. In the end, however, the right mixture counts,” explains Sebastian Popp, “how we do that is our secret. Tippi Hedren still has incredible charisma today. We are proud that she came to Frankfurt to accept the Festival Honors posthumously awarded to Alfred Hitchcock – for me the greatest directors of his time and a pioneer of classic special effects.”
Alongside Minister-President Roland Koch and patron Minister of State Udo Corts, further politicians from the city and state were among the gala guests.
The programme: Visual effects fascinate, German productions catch up
The programme was received positively throughout by visitors: A special highlight was the presentations by specialists who explained to the audience “en détail” how they create visual effects for Hollywood blockbusters. For example, Oscar winner John Knoll of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) presented the development of the extraordinary visual effects for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy. Miles Perkins, Marketing Director at ILM, looked back in his enthusiastically received contribution on the development of visual effects in film production and demonstrated milestones in film history from the past twenty years. Rainer Gombos has shown that German VFX artists do not have to hide behind Hollywood either. The VFX Supervisor of the production company Pixomondo, based among other places in Frankfurt am Main, showed why not a single aircraft had to take to the air during filming for the eagerly awaited cinema film “The Red Baron”.
Focus on animation – the boundary between film and computer games is fluid
The film animators did not want to stand behind the VFX specialists. Cult animator Bill Plympton presented a making-of of his latest feature film “Idiots and Angels” – film release 2008. The spectacular character animation by Spencer Cook (Sony Imageworks) for “Spider-Man 3” fascinated the participants alongside many further presentation. The example of “Spider-Man” in particular makes clear that in animation the boundaries between the production of films and computer games are fluid; the disciplines fertilize one another. After all, computer games today already achieve higher revenues than films at the box office. Michael Endres, Production Manager of the successful company Crytek, likewise based in Frankfurt, explained the enormous amount of work involved in developing new games such as “Crysis”.
Documentary film – working in the digital age
The “Documentary” focus, included in the festival programme for the first time last year, also enjoyed particular interest: Oscar winner Pepe Danquart reported on the working and production methods of his new film “To the Limit”, the breathtaking documentary about the record attempt by two speed climbers at dizzying heights. With “Behind the Couch”, Veit Helmer provided bizarre insights into the depths of the casting business of the Hollywood dream factory and into his working methods; as did Sung-Hyung Cho, who lives in Hesse and who won this year’s Max Ophüls Prize for best film and the 2006 Hesse Film Prize with “Full Metal Village”. How important computer animation has meanwhile become in documentary film was discussed in cooperation with ard.zdf.medienakademie.
