On Friday March 27th, TVM: Student Television at McGill hosted the ninth edition of the annual Fokus Film Festival at Cinéma du Parc.
Hundreds turned out to see the student-made documentaries, fiction, and experimental films. The theme of this year’s festival was time travel, and documentary films such as Johanna Cottin’s B&B in Jasper and Daniel Lombroso’s Mountain of Servants (to name a few), got the audience thinking about the future of Canada’s national parks, and a village in Tur Abdin, Turkey suffering from depopulation, respectively.
The fiction films, too, impressed the crowd. McGill-centered Stix (Eric Tawagi) and Wondergrads (Daniel Fishbayn) gathered roaring laughs. The Flies by JG Debray also managed to make the all-too-familiar post-break-up existential crisis hilarious, and ended up taking home the People’s Choice Award.
The experimental films were also a pleasure to watch. A realist film shot mainly on a cellphone (Vanity by Nick Yeretsian), a bilingual Montreal romance (The Language by JG Debray), and a music video composed of close-up shots of a dancer and playful lighting (Walla Walla by Sashka Avanyan) were featured among other short films.
Lastly, two films were entered in the festival as a part of the 72-hour filmmaking competition. Both Elle (Cedric Yarish & Ian McNeice) and Untitled (Nick Yeretsian) were made in seventy-two hours following directions given to make a film inspired by the term “counter-clockwise.” It was hard to believe that the films were written, filmed, and edited in just a matter of days.
Cinema-goers, filmmakers and Fokus volunteers alike gathered at Nesta Bar (3519 Boul. St-Laurent) for the official after party, where the winners of the festival were announced. Overall, the evening was a great success, and served as a reminder of all the talented writers, actors, and filmmakers we have at McGill. And for those who missed it, Fokus will be back next year!
Winners
Best Fiction: The Flies (JG Debray)
Best Documentary: Tiep Bou Dien (Johanna Cottin)
Best Experimental: The Language (JG Debray)
72 Hour: Elle (Cedric Yarish & Ian McNeice)
People’s Choice: The Flies (JG Debray)
Best of the Festival: Mountain of Servants (Daniel Lombroso)
Images taken by Valerie Shoif.