Koen's curtains

If film festivals are supposed to establish an interconnection among the audience, the press, the filmmakers, this is particularly true Kino OTOK, this elements having remained as the core of the festival for the past 8 years.

On a bright morning I met up with Koen Van Daele who is one of the programmers for the Isola International Film Festival. With the echo of children's laughter on a background van Daele dives into to the conversation clearly with a strong passion for film. »I am very much an old school believer in author cinema. So I believe that there is a person or a group of persons who are behind the film, so that is not a product, something which has grown on to the market and is there to sell and entertain. That it is an artefact, that it is a work of somebody with a vision and an idea to bring those ideas to the screen.»

Van Daele shares that he has been surrounded by films since his youth: from watching Austrian and catasthrope movies in the 70s to attending a film school in Brussels where he shortly after also got involved in writing about films. But he adds that his interest into films »took on many many different shapes and changed a lot. But I keep on being interested in very very different types of cinema«, from watching great Hollywood to Bollywood movies.

Listening to him I find that he almost portrays a visual image of the atmosphere in the 19th century «when the curtains roll open« and the moment when the filmmaker 'will tell you' something. He adds that this is totally lost today. All of a sudden I find myself taking a step back in my mind and thinking about my first experience with cinema. I remember in my home in southern Estonia the film nights took place at a local cultural house, where before the film screening the worn black curtains were pulled on a side and the screen rolled down. To an extent I agree with him and miss the notion of visiting a cinema as if watching a spectacle.

He has been a programer at Cinemathek in Ljubljana for 6 years now and coordinated many special programms. It was his position as a programmer for the documentary section in Kino OTOK that established his link with the Isola International Film Festival. He explains that as a programmer one of the key things for him is always to see the film and imagine the public before it is there.

Van Daele uses Yorgos Lanthimos film Alps as an example, explaining that what makes it a very strong film is »the language that it invents in a way. The total freshness of ideas, cinematic ideas. So its not that so much a tool to convey messages but that as a way of expression. To me film is really an art. Even it is also something to make money.»

When touching on the atmosphere he notes that »the goal here was that they (the directors) would be here the full period from the beginning to the end. And that we would also try to create a certain level of complicity between filmmakers, audience, critics and that we would all be part of the same thing.« The notion of no division and that of experiencing the festival as a collective way are deeply embedded in the connection the event establishes with its visitors. And what I have gathered over the last few days is that it still for the filmakers one of the most memorable festival experiences.

From my side I am still experiencing this euphoria moment. Like really? Was it the director of the Whore's glory whom I have seen when enjoying my morning splash at the local beach this week? And to be honest for me it was enough. Because this is what I enjoy here in Isola the most, we share s space where there are no barries no fences and no 'media hats'. I could actually say this experience for me is an invisible autogram by a renowed filmmaker.  

Published in Otok Daily brochure, in association with Pina for Isola International Film Festival 2012. 
http://www.pina.si/otokdaily/

Text: Katre Laan

Image: Blanca Selas Chao