By Morten Scriver Andersen
This year, for the first time, SPOT festival has introduced a separate film program with documentaties, short films and music videos. But the film program should not be seen as a separate festival. Instead, SPOT festival is turning into a melting pot of music, film and interactive, says Anders Søndergaard, leader of SPOT film
In the past 20 years, SPOT Festival has been an important showcase for the Scandinavian music scene, attracting the attention of international professionals especially those from Germany. But this year is different.
This year SPOT Festival will hold both a film and an interactive part to accompany the music festival. These events are supposed to contribute to a modern crossover experience as leader of SPOT Film, Anders Søndergaard explains:
“It is not thought as separate festivals but as a total package in which the audience can get a more complete experience. Nowadays it is difficult to imagine music isolated from a visual context so I think it is very natural.”
One particular event within this initiative to combine film with music, is an interactive documentary about the Icelandic singer songwriter Teitur which is accompanied by a performance by the artist. Also on the program is a documentary called Downloaded, which is about the music site Napster, the screening of which is followed by a panel discussion about the whole downloading issue.
Spot the film talent
However, the film part is not supposed to just supplement the music part of the festival. The ambition is to create a strong film program so that in the next couple of years this festival is just as important to Scandinavian Film talents as SPOT Festival is to the Scandinavian music scene.
Therefore, besides a selection of Danish and international documentaries and music videos, the film program contains a short film contest aimed at showcasing the best of Scandinavian film talent to a crowd of professionals from all around the world.
Also, there has been an open call for nothing but the best film idea. This competition has been arranged in cooperation with Filmby Aarhus, Aarhus Filmværksted and SF Film. The winner will get 100.000kr in cash and 400.000kr earmarked for production facilities. The owners of the six best ideas get to present them to a professional jury and the winner is announced on the Sunday of the festival.
“Hopefully,” says Carsten Holst, manager of Filmby Aarhus, “this ends up in a fantastic movie. And it can help local talents to national and international cooperation, then we are really getting somewhere.”
Søndergaard says all these initiatives are taken because “we want to do exactly what SPOT Festival has done for the music scene over the last 20 years”. “It takes time,” says Søndergaard and SPOT Film has a long road ahead if it is going to establish SPOT festival as an important player in the international film scene. However, Søndergaard is keen to assure us that “this is an experiment, and we are very excited to see how the audience and the professionals react to it.”
Last year, SPOT Festival took the first steps towards making a separate film program for the festival when they showcased around ten movies and a couple of master classes. But there was no talent contest, no idea contest and not so much focus on the film part.
This year SPOT Festival is getting serious about kick-starting the film part and has dedicated the entire Sunday, of the four day festival, to the film program. On the Sunday, all SPOT festival activity takes place at Øst for Paradis, where all the cinemas are occupied in the name of SPOT Festival. The winners of the two contests will be announced, and the courtyard will be the venue of a few performances with some popular Danish music acts.
With a little help from a friend
Even though this all seems very new for SPOT festival, the festival has a solid helping hand from the opposite side of Denmark. Four years ago CPH:DOX, Denmark’s biggest documentary festival, turned into a part music festival when they introduced the category Audio:Visuals in which bands are brought together with a film or a visual artist to give the audience a more unique experience. Music Programmer at CPH:DOX, Adam Thorsmark, explains in accordance with Anders Søndergaard that the movement towards music and concerts was a natural step.
“There has been a wave of interesting music documentaries in the last couple of years so the opportunity to show them along with the band itself was obvious,” he says and continues.“ Moreover, it was an opportunity for us to get out to a bigger audience.”
Therefore, SPOT Festival and CPH:DOX have entered into a cooperation in which SPOT Festival can benefit from the Copenhagen festival’s expertise in documentaries and CPH:DOX can expose its films to a wider audience.
“When it comes to selecting the best music documentaries and getting the directors to show up, CPH:DOX might be the best in the world. And at the same time we have the same audience so we can benefit from each other,” says Anders Søndergaard.
Among the documentaries that are taken directly from the CPH:DOX program are Mistaken for Strangers about the American rock band The National, The Stone Roses: Made of Stone and Death Metal Angola, which were all great audience successes at CPH:DOX last year.
CPH:DOX has grown steadily the last couple of years after it merged into a part music festival, and with more than 20 concerts 2013 was the festival’s best year yet, attracting an audience of 71.000, 20.000 more than the year before.
So it seems that the combination of film and music is a tried and tested combination that is bringing in the crowds, let’s see how it plays out at SPOT.
Morten Scriver Andersen is a contributor for the danish press, Jutland Station. He is born and raised in Aarhus and is currently studying a master in Journalism.
