Film Fest Gent has been around for fifty years and celebrates this with this special project 2×25. The festival asked 25 composers to write a short piece of music. Subsequently, 25 directors, including Jia Zhangke and Paul Schrader, made short films to accompany the musical scores. All movies can be watched online for free starting today.
Making a movie with music? Yes, this is really unusual, because common practice is for a film composer to compose music for pictures. Film Fest Ghent turns it around and emphasizes the role of film music.
Soundtracks are often viewed as support for film images, but Film Fest Gent doesn’t quite agree with that view. This is understandable for a festival that has paid so much attention to film music since 1985. This culminated in 2001 with the World Soundtrack Awards, an annual event that hands out awards at the festival, including Best Composer and Best Original Score.
A good idea for the festival is to invite twenty-five composers to write a short piece of music and then invite twenty-five film directors to join them. Composers and filmmakers around the world have appreciated the original approach, so the festival had no problem attracting names. Among the composers is Gabriel Yared (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley) and Béla Tarr’s regular composer Mihaly Vig (Satantango, Werkmeister Harmoniac), but also relative newcomer Ikuo Ishibashi (Driving my car). Also Howard Shore (the Lord of the Rings, Se7en(and Daniel Pemberton)Spider-Man: Through the Spider-Verse) partner. Less well known, but no less interesting, are the experimental composers Bauchi Sasaki (Cancion without number(and Colin Stetson)Hereditary, food menu).
After the composers finished their work, the festival asked the filmmakers to produce a short film based on the music. They were allowed to choose from a few pieces of music, but were not allowed to work previously with the chosen composer. Many filmmakers thought this was an excellent idea. Paul Schrader, Naomi Kawase, Terence Davies, and Jia Zhangke, among others, have directed the film.
2×25 | From September 15 | Free on filmfestgent.be
All duets and movie titles at a glance:
Florencia Di Concilio (Uruguay) x Terence Davies (United Kingdom) – time passing
Shigeru Umebayashi (Japan) x Radu Jude (Romania) – Greetings from Kringasi
Gustavo Santaolalla (Argentina) x Jacqueline Lenzo (Greece) – Chandelier (or go home)
Aiko Ishibashi (Japan) x Laura Citarella (Argentina) – Trink Luckin
Mihaly Vij (Hungary) x Alexander Kuperidze (Georgia) – The more you zoom in on these dogs, the more obvious it becomes that they are associated with the stars
Alex Heves (UK) x Alexander O. Philip (United States) – Ghent Film Festival
Arnaud Rebottini (France) x Helena Wittmann (Germany) – Bloating
Jung Jae-il (South Korea) x Jairo Bustamante (Guatemala) – Fuego Sagrado
Gabriel Yared (Lebanon) x Joao Pedro Rodriguez (Portugal) – a step
Daniel Pemberton (UK) x Paul Schrader (US) – title unknown
Colin Stetson (USA) x Ildiko Ennedi (Hungary) – My fear is in my arms
Nainita Desai (United Kingdom) x Brillante Mendoza (Philippines) – Moro
Danielle Hart (USA) x Anis Vanspowen and Paul De Bleecker (Belgium) – It’s raining, it’s raining
Evguene Galperin (France) x Pei Gan (China) – Moon fragments
Teresa Barroso (Philippines) x Jia Zhangqi (China) – Out of the forest
Rachel Portman (UK) x Diana Cam Van Nguyen (Czech Republic) – Dancing fruits
Bauchi Sasaki (Peru) x Jessica Bachir (Mexico/Ethiopia) – Ladan
Amine Bouhafa (Tunisia) x Naomi Kawase (Japan) – sound echo
Gabriel Chojnik (Argentina) x Emge and Sene Özbilj (Belgium/Türkiye) – Fit in
Abel Korzeniowski (Poland) x Anthony Chen (Singapore) – The cigarette
Dirk Brosset (Belgium) x Milts van Kuele (Belgium) – Chamarez
Patrick Doyle (Scotland) x Juanita Unzaga (Colombia) – safe haven
Tsar Bey (Belgium) x Jessica Woodworth (Belgium) – He flies
Howard Shore (Canada) x Anthony Netti and Cengiz Karybekov (Belgium) – the point
Anne Dudley (England) x Stijn Koninckx (Belgium)
