And the winners are...

It’s the beginning of the end. Last day of the festival and my body feels it. The party yesterday at the festival pub was incredible. All these filmmakers who were nominated for best film had come to see if they would go home with a little bronze price. A true red carpet moment for the Uppsala short film festival, without the actual red carpet in this case. I think it was green.

The Queen got packed early on so I said my hi’s and bye’s to the filmmakers I could find and then we were off to another place, this huge place called Saluhallen here in Uppsala.  It’s stores and restaurants during the day but at night they close everything down and the whole place turns into a party house with multiple dance floors. It was obvious I wasn’t going home early.

I hate to say I told you so but I told you so. Actually I don’t hate saying it so I’ll say it again. I told you so! In some of my first posts in this blog I mentioned some favorites of mine. I said the Swedish films This Is Alaska was going places and the same thing with my favorite, Wanted To Be Friends and guess what? They both won prizes! This is Alaska won Best Swedish Film and Wanted To Be Friends won an honorary mention. I’m really happy to see that there are so many great Swedish shorts this year. It’s a breath of fresh air. Even if that air is freezing here in Uppsala.

If that wasn’t enough, the filmmakers that I interviewed, won Best Film of the festival for Elephant Skin.  After I had seen the film I knew this was a contender to be reckoned with and that’s why I started talking to them in the first place.  When I congratulated them at the pub a fun fact gets delivered to me by Ulrike. I was, or actually Sweden.se was, the first in the world to interview them. As a parting joke before I left yesterday I said I would do a follow up interview with them after they win their first Oscar.

Soon I’ll post a “greatest hits” of the festival. A “the hits and misses” if you will because there are a few films that should be mentioned and a few people I would like to thank so keep reading.

Today I’ll see as much film as I can taking into account it’s the final day of a seven-day stretch and I’m going back to Stockholm to resume life as it was before these six to eight hour per day blocks of film. It feels weird in a way and part of me doesn’t want to go but hey, there’s always next year!