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Watershed June 2012 Podcast The has just come to a close with a sense that absolutely the right film won the top prize: Michael Haneke’s masterly and quite brilliant Amour. I saw the film at the legendary 08:30 press screening slot. At this point no one has seen the film. We – 2500 people including press, industry and audience - are seeing it collectively for the first time. All one knows is the title and the director. Of course if you know the director’s work then you can speculate on what might be in store – intense cerebral cold detached confrontational – might be some words that come to mind for Haneke’s oeuvre! What unspooled was indeed intense and possibly confrontational as its subject matter explores love in an age of dementia but it was also full of warmth and tenderness with monumentally moving performances from Jean Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as the ailing elderly couple moving inexorably towards their last moments together.

The twittersphere lit up with positive 140 characters reviews from press and industry (well certainly the ones I follow) and I was one of them. There is a mastery and perfection about the film that really is unparalleled in my opinion. Haneke is up there with Rembrandt in his ability to look squarely at himself/ourselves and reflect back to us our frailties, our anxieties and an essence of our humanity. This takes a great artist and Haneke has proved he is a great artist. But in terms of the Cannes competition the bar was raised too high.

And this is the problem for when you are exposed to great art all that follow or that has passed reveal their imperfections. In eight concentrated days of over 25 films whether it was ’s magnificently energetic love amongst the ruins or Mungiu’s parable of religious zeal or Leos Carax’s deliciously absurdist . They are all relegated to the second division - the game is a bogey. The rulebook has been ripped up.

What we need is imperfection. For in that imperfection we see possibility. As Beckett described it “Fail. Fail again. Fail Better” Great art is simply too great. All we can do is surrender and genuflect at its magnificence see Michelangelo’s Pieta as exhibit no 1, Rembrandt’s later self portraits exhibit no 2 and now Haneke’s Amour in the case for the prosecution.

However having said that what Haneke’s film brings to us is the most intense and rewarding cinematic experience – a beautifully crafted, powerful, moving contemplation on the essential existential truth that all things must pass but maybe just maybe love continues.

Another director whose film for me got close to Haneke’s perfection was his fellow countryman Ulrich Seidl. Again he was exploring the powerful emotion of love in his new film entitled Paradise: Love but here viewed as a cross cultural transaction between middle aged white European women seeking sex (and possibly love) with black Kenyans whilst on holiday. Seidl’s honest unblinking camera reveals all the beauty, ugliness and complexity of the modern condition. I got a copy of the press pack and the images were stunning.

Seidl, who trained as a photographer, I’m sure is aware that the still images here are the art but the film is the truth.

Haneke’s Amour is scheduled to open on Nov 16.

We wait to find out if Seidl’s Paradise: Love will get a UK distributor. However you can see an interview with the director at Watershed from a couple of years ago http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/ulrich-seidl-season

During the festival I attended a Europa Cinemas conferences seminar. If you are a regular Watershed cinema attendee you will have seen the Europa Cinemas logo on screen – with some groovy music – before the feature film. This conference is an opportunity to catch up on issues relating to the network and evolving policies from the European Media programme. Now cinema has seen a radical shift from 35mm to digital and it was acknowledged in the conference the impact of digital is going to bring more changes to the . The most fundamental of these is the digital utopia (increasingly becoming a reality) of everything available now. E.g. Why shouldn’t you be able to view Haneke’s Amour straight after its Cannes showcase? Without going into the details i.e. things like territories, windows (that is cinemas screen first, then it gets released on DVD, then on TV) in my opinion all this will fundamentally change. What happens to the cinema and the cinematic experience is very much a live issue and I look forward to debating it at the annual Europa Cinemas conference in November.

Closer to home – we are 30 years old this month. Watershed or Britain's first Media and Communication Centre as it was then described opened its doors on June 7th 1982. It really was set up in a pioneering spirit to capture the changes that were then taking place in the media – a fourth terrestrial channel was being set up, VHS was winning over betamax as the domestic recording technology of the day, and satellite was on the horizon. How things have evolved! And reflecting on it, really only in our 30th year are we beginning to feel we are realising the aspirations and vision of our founders.

To mark our 30th birthday and 30 years of cultural adventure, engagement and innovation we will be having an Open Day on 7th June 2012 which will not only give you a flavour of some of the creative projects we are currently involved with through iShed and our Pervasive Media Studio but also celebrate Bristol's rich through 30 hours of screenings in the cinemas of work all Made in Bristol over the decades including a special preview of the second iFeatures film 8 Minutes Idle. Plus in the Café/Bar on a smallscale cinema we will be presenting 30 examples of Bristol short filmmaking from our online projects DepicT!, Electric December and Bristol Stories. Late in the evening we will be partying into the night and 30 years away with a special DJ and moving image set which will delve into our collective Bristol audio and visual past.

Our regular brunch screenings have been extended this month to get into the birthday spirit with the theme of Connected to Bristol. Over every weekend in June we will be screening films which are connected to the city in one shape or another from Bedminster born producer 's The King's Speech and Shame to Banksy's Exit Through The Gift Shop and Westbury-on-Trym born J Lee Thompson's Cape Fear. Be prepared to be surprised by some of the connections. http://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/season/203/30th-birthday/