Short films play a significant role in your professional career. In your opinion, what can a short film reveal about a director’s creative "credo"?
You can often draw a straight line from a director's shorts to their features, and vice versa. The obsessions are already there, the formal instincts, what they find funny or unbearable. Charlotte Wells's shorts are unmistakably the same sensibility that made Aftersun. Aneil Karia's interest in bodies under pressure runs straight from Beat through The Long Goodbye to Surge.
How has the structure and objective of the Encounters Film Festival changed over the years?
Encounters has been going on for three decades. We're 31 this year. We're a place where people gather from around the world to witness the most exciting new storytelling out there. What's grown around that is the festival's role as a genuine site of breakthrough, whether that's a filmmaker announcing themselves on the international scene, or audiences discovering their favourite new director or actor, or industry encounters that turn into careers.
As we enter our fourth decade, what it means to break through has changed too. The industry isn't rigid anymore, and people don't think in simple terms of short and feature. They talk about web series, streaming series and high-end TV, the journey from YouTube to feature filmmaking, vertical series, Instagram, Reels, TikTok, content in every shape and duration, we even see narrative storytelling in Roblox and Fortnite. We're interested in all of those journeys, and in the experimentation happening across all those formats.
The size, scale and ambition of Encounters has always been tied to the size, scale and ambition of the industry around it, both regionally and nationally. So we're embarking on the festival's third iteration with all of that as the context. Who knows where it goes, but it's sure to be a rollercoaster.
From an outsider's perspective, British cinema seems to be going through a great period. How do you see the current trends in filmmaking within the region?
There's a strong generation coming through, and a lot of them came up through shorts, which is part of the Encounters story. These are some of the voices the next decade of British cinema will be built on. A cross-border conversation is something Encounters has always tried to play a role in. We're a festival that brings people together internationally and tells stories from around the world, and that's something we want to do more of as we move forward. It's one of the reasons we're really delighted to have been invited to be present at Friss Hús this year.
How do you watch a film as a jury member, a curator, and as a "regular" viewer? Are you able to separate these roles when watching a film just for pleasure?
On a jury, you feel a responsibility to the talent behind the film, not just the film itself. As a curator, you're thinking about how a film sits inside a programme, how that programme will connect with an audience, and what your responsibilities are to that audience. But the films that really break through, the ones you remember, are the ones that dissolve all of that and just plug straight into the part of you that watches for pleasure. If a film genuinely engages
you, you forget you're a jury member or a curator.
What are your expectations for this year’s Friss Hús Hungarian competition program?
I come with an open mind rather than expectations. I've heard great things about the festival, and I'm excited to experience it myself. I'm also really excited to be back in Budapest for the first time in probably twenty years, and it feels like a particularly interesting moment to be visiting. The best festivals are always shaped by where they are and when they are, and I'm looking forward to discovering what this one brings.