Amsterdam Film eXperience
The Amsterdam Film eXperience, or AFX for short, is an annual filmfestival that takes place in Amsterdam. The festival is being organized by the AISFF (Amsterdam International Short Film Festival). AISFF used to be the name of the festival itself, but the organization decided to focus less on short films and to focus more on the broader experience of film in all of its forms, hence the title Amsterdam Film eXperience.
| Location | Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
|---|---|
| Language | International |
| Website | https://web.archive.org/web/20070831023359/http://www.amsterdamfilmexperience.com:80/ |
Even though AFX is Amsterdam(NL)-based, the focus of the festival is mainly international. The organization of AFX consists of a varied group of people with different cultural, educational and professional backgrounds. All team members hold full-time jobs or study next to their work for the festival. Apart from the AFX core-team, the festival is made possible every year with the help of volunteers.
The beginning
The first edition of AFX took place from 6 to 8 October 2006 at the old part of Het Ketelhuis (also called 'Openbare Verlichting') in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. During this first edition of the festival, short films were shown in six different categories of competition:
- Experimental Documentary
- Guerilla Techniques
- Sound & Vision
- Narrative Time Space Continuum
- Buzz Clicks & Visual Chaos: New Directions
- Crossover Animation.
Each film that ran in the competition could win one of the four awards. The following four films eventually won the prizes:
- Tyger (Guilherme Marcondes, Brazilië 2006) – Best in Show
- Spin (Jamin Winans, Verenigde Staten 2005) – People's Choice
- Metalosis Maligna (Floris Kaayk, Nederland 2006) – Jameson-Award (sponsor-award)
- Kapitaal (Thom Snels, Nederland 2005) – Breaking Out of the Frame-Award (jury-prize)
There were also films shown out of competition, some names of filmmakers running out of competition are Rosto A. D., Chris Cunningham and Virgil Widrich. They collaborated with other international filmfestivals, which resulted mainly in exchanging parts of the program and cross-promotion. Also, there was a special kids-program.
According to AFX, the festival concerns itself not just with film, but with the broader experience of everything that has in any way to do with film. They hope to accomplish this by having a strong supporting program consisting of (video-, art-, media-)installations, workshops (e.g. Florian Thalhofer), lectures and interactive content (e.g. 15x15).
AFX'07
Between 2 and 4 November 2007, the festival was held at Het Ketelhuis, which took place inside their new setting, which contained three filmscreens. Also, the area around the cinema, which lies on the 'Westergasfabriek'-terrain, had been actively used for the festival.