It’s the evening of the fifth film festival day as I write this, and here are my (technical) reflections this far:

• Swedish short films are still bad, generally speaking. The technical quality and craftsmanship is poor, to put it kindly.
• Come to think of it, Swedish feature-length films are not much better.
• Finland, on the other hand, still outputs feature films to very high technical standards. The images are gorgeous and the sound mixes precise and crisp. It is obvious that their people know what they are doing.
• If you disregard their independent productions, American films tend to look surprisingly bland on screen. Their catering budgets equal a minor third world country’s, but the images are featureless and boring. It is as if they had tried (and succeeded) to replicate the increasingly poor multiple generation 35mm prints of the last few years before the media died.
• Digital cinema is here to stay. Unfortunately. I will not screen a single new 35mm feature this year. Not one. Can you imagine how sad this makes me feel?

I will probably post more comments later, at some point.