Stephanie Daly

This must be one of the more picturesque film festivals in Europe
situated next to Lake Maggiore on the Swiss side of the Italian-Swiss
border. It also seems to be quite a well attended festival as most of
the screenings we went to were quite full. The screens are separated
by short walks or shuttle bus if your feet are getting a little
tired!

There were 21 films in International Competition this year and
Personally, I felt that the standard wasn't particularly high. This
opinion seems to be borne out by the way the awards went, with no
single movie attracting any particular lauding. There were a
lot of movies that had little or no cohesion and just couldn't obey
the basic premise of keeping the audience's interest. I felt that a
number of the movies failed badly in their attempts to convey their
message.

The winner Das Fräulein suffered none of these problems, maybe I'm a
wee bit of a traditionalist but, when it comes to movies, I do like a
story to be weaved. Das Fräulein was also voted Overall Winner by the
main jury. In terms of competition entries that will appear at FICC screens in
the future I think there are very few but Half Nelson and Stephanie
Daly should surely feature.

Niall (Oscar) Foran, FICC jury member from Ireland