Erich Riess is the wonderful eccentric who runs the Festival of Nations in Ebensee, Austria.

He is at its heart, whether greeting delegates, taking a quick dip in the Traunsee Lake on one of three occasions when he took the entire festival to the lake side for a picnic lunch in a beautifully hot week.

The festival is open to all non-commercial movies so includes work by film students. We were delighted to meet Matthew Waltes and his girlfriend from Wales who popped in for a day and Jim Walker from Keighley who stayed the week ... and won a bronze bear for The Chair, his second ever movie. Though the language of the festival is German a great deal of English is spoken and this year some French as Jean-Pierre Hué and his wife were there all week. (He won a Gold Bear for The Better the Harvest which did so well at BIAFF.) For many people from other lands English proved a convenient second language - among them Eyal Boers from Israel (who won a bronze bear for What Matters and Olga Spatova from the Czech Republic (Whose film Passing which topped the BIAFF awards won a golden bear.)

The only trick of language you need is to learn the difference between "bear" which is the festival's emblem and "beer" which is what seems to sustain it. So even if you don't know German don't hesitate. Plan to go next year: 18-24th June 2006.

Jean-Pierre Hué France.	Reinhardt Steininger  (Austria) and Christiane Surdiacourt (Belgium).	Jim Walker from Britain and his prize.
Bernhard and Barbara Zimmermann (Germany)	Mario Rusca (Italy) and Olga Spatova (Czech Republic).	Eyal Boers from Israel.

Travel to Austria from the UK is easy and can be very cheap. Salzburg is the nearest airport but consider Linz and Graz as well. Both are served by low-cost airlines and have easy access to the excellent and cheap Austrian railway network. You can check your route to "Ebensee Landingsplatz" in detail, including intermediate stops and platform numbers) on the web (www.oebb.at) and buy tickets from multi-lingual vending machines in stations or on the train. The festival's own website (www.8ung.at/filmfestival) has links to the town's one with details of hotels and boarding houses.

More on the event and winners

Page updated on 21 March 2008

Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers

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