The Âge d’Or Prize, named after the groundbreaking film by Luis Buñuel, is given to a film that “excels in cinematographic non-conformism”. The two Filmvondsten prizes want “to encourage the distribution of high quality films”: €10,000 goes to the Belgian distributors that release the winning films.
In the past three years, the international festival had been organised in conjunction with the Brussels European Film festival, so we saw a steep raise in European films. AO/FV may not be part of the Brussels European Film Festival anymore, but the European dominance hasn’t disappeared. On the contrary, with 67%, this is the most “European” version of AO/FV ever.
Even more amazingly, only nine percent of the films are Asian, an all-time low that doesn’t reflect the vibrancy still felt in the Asian cinema. After missing Oxhide five years ago, the festival didn’t select the second feature by director Liu Jiayin, Oxhide II, one of the most daring films in recent years. All in all, Chinese mainland underground cinema has produced some true gems that would have fitted the AO/FV bill nicely.
Moreover, it’s out of touch with the lively Korean underground that in recent years has been the source of Âge d’Or films from the likes of Kim Gok or Kim Kyung-mook. The latter’s recent A Cheonggyecheon Dog is an explicit homage to Buñuel’s film.
Luckily, there’s also good news. Whereas in recent years, AO/FV had gone the way of the Brussels European Film Festival, shying away from programming established directors in favour of up and comers, this year we see a lot of big shots: Frenchman Jean-Luc Godard, Georgian Otar Iosseliani, Portuguese centenarian Manoel de Oliveira and two world famous documentary directors, Chile’s Patricio Guzmán and American Frederick Wiseman.
So, although AO/FV won’t appease the hunger of Asian film fans, there might still be enough in store for an interesting festival.
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