Dave Watterson and Oliver Lukesch.

The Festival of Nations in Austria, is one of the world's great events for non-commercial moviemakers. It has been staged for many years in Ebensee on the edge of the beautiful Traunsee lake, though most of the organisers and workers come from Linz. Technical aspects of presentation for the week-long event are in the hands of students. In 2005 one of them was 18-year-old Oliver Lukesch, who explains his involvement in 2005's festival during conversation with Dave Watterson.

How did you first get interested in film and media?

There are so many answers I could give and none of them would be completely correct. Maybe this is the fascinating thing about media - that it touches life in many different ways, that it affects everybody and that it can not be specified. The Fadinger Gymnasium, the school I attend, is well known for the way it deals with these topics - we've even got a subject called "Media", where we learn about all things related to media and the different faces media can have - about film, radio and even print. Although this may sound a lot, the real action takes place in a small group around Professor Manfred Pilsz. We are the students doing all the things the other people are just learning about. We make films, produce our school radio programme and stay in constant contact with the media scene in some very different ways - and sometimes visiting strange film festivals!

Professor Manfred Pilsz - photo by Bernhard Hausberger

Some of the bigger projects, for example our latest film, are devised to involve more pupils. It is partly computer animated, partly painted and partly based on real shots. More than 40 or 50 pupils worked on the development of this movie. All in all you can say that everybody who is interested in the topic has the chance to get a broad picture of the media world we are living in and is able to gather a lot of theoretical and practical experience.

How are the students who work at Ebensee chosen and what does working there entail?
The students visiting Ebensee are selected on the basis of their experience with projects of this size and on how much they are interested in participating. Some only come for a few days, others stay the week. People in higher classes are automatically selected for a longer stay at the Festival of Nations.

Photo by Bernhard Hausberger

There is no real "professional" organisation behind the scenes of this festival - but the amateurs operate at a really high level. All the equipment comes from private sources - mostly from Erich  Riess (festival director) or other members of the video club standing behind this festival. Except for the lights and the light control unit, we do not use the equipment of the Ebensee Kino (the cinema where the festival is held.) That means that we have to transport all the technical gear from our bases in Linz to Ebensee when the Festival starts and that we have to get it back again after the Festival has come to an end. For the people working at the festival, the event begins the day the before the official start - but we can't spend hours watching videos, we have to spend our time setting up all the equipment and getting the apparatus working.

As for our "resources" (it's always nice to hear such a term for our "stuff") -  two or three Mini DV Players, DVD Players, one Casablanca editing machine, one audio control panel, some cameras, some audio-boxes and kilometers of cables. And there is the equipment other private people bring with them - computers, laptops and cameras.

What is the hardest part of the operation?

Probably the organisation of the event is the single hardest task.  Erich Riess and his team are busy a long time before the official start of the Festival. There seem to be many different things, for example collecting all the delegate and entrant names, coordinating the participants and previewing over 700 movies. During the week, the hardest thing is keeping the festival running to timetable - which does not always work as planned! There are so many problems to solve all the time and there are always new ones and new ones and new ...

Upsetting the timetable - a lunchtime picnic by the lake for the whole festival. Erich Riess even went bathing in the Traunsee.

How did you and Olga Spatová get together to make the festival's video diary, the Bäroskop? ("Bear-o-Scope" - named for the event's teddy-bear emblem.)

Olga and Oliver filming .

Because the Bäroskop wasn't really a great success last year, Erich wanted to have a permanent team taking care of this part of the festival. He met Olga and asked her to visit his festival - and besides to do the Bäroskop. Further he knew that a team consists of more than just one member - so he asked me to do the Bäroskop with Olga.

The bear logo.

You cannot say that the Bäroskops were planned at a certain point of time every day - it was mostly done during cutting of the previous Bäroskops - and mostly very late at night. Because of her experience using cameras Olga did the main part of the photography and I assisted . At the editing computer, it was exactly the opposite. Working with Olga was a great experience - I enjoyed every second - although cutting wasn't always easy. We had an incredible amount of fun every day, especially in the evenings assembling the day's material. We used a Panasonic Handy Cam and edited on Adobe Premiere 6.5.

Oliver and Olga during a break.

Olga and Oliver consider a scene. Olga Spatová comments on:  My Ebensee with Oli ... I met Erich Riess at the UNICA film festival in Warsaw, where my short film Samma (Alone) had been screened, and he offered me the opportunity to make a daily documentary at his film festival in the Austrian town of  Ebensee. I was little bit nervous about who I would work with because of language problems and, perhaps, different young "ambitious" opinions ... Oliver Lukesch was a great stoke of luck for me. He´s three years younger than me, but many times I felt like his fussy, nervous pupil. He took a very professional control of editing in Adobe Premiere. He had self-confident English, original ideas and a sense of humour. It was a great joy for me, to watch him concentratedly thinking about the topic for our short daily cut. I like to remember our midnight enthusiastic work sessions, handling a huge quantity of video material in a narrow editing-room, drinking Coca-Cola and all the time laughing our heads off at our teenage ideas.  In my opinion Oliver fulfills all the requirements of an original filmmaker - sense of music and film rhythm, technical education, interest in people and life. During my stay in Ebensee I was watching Oliver and his Austrian schoolmates working there professionally and spontaneously. They (the girls too) can take charge of technical jobs, work as a harmonious team and converse with foreigners fluently in English. I found out that students in these progressive countries have great support from their school. Teachers want to lead them in such creative working. I felt very comfortable and satisfied with them. I´m very glad for Erich´s offer, for eight days with interesting people, with my "big younger brother" Oliver and for whole friendly feel of the Festival of Nations.

What next for you, Oliver?

Portrait of Oliver Lukesch.

In my summer holidays I'm working at the Ars Electronica Center - the Museum of the Future - (www.aec.at) - the place where Media and Art come together. After I've (hopefully) finished school next year, I'll have to work for about a year as a civil worker somewhere in Austria. When this episode of my life is finished, I will try to find a place at a University which deals with Media - for example the FH Salzburg (Salzburg Fachhochschul - Salzburg college), where you can study MMA (multimedia art). I'd say that there are too many possibilities in the future for me to give a more concrete forecast - the world is changing fast and the world of media even faster.

- Dave Watterson    Sep 2006