The Participants 2007:
Why Do I Want to Be a Film Critic?
By Sarah Stähli (Switzerland)

When it came to deciding what to study, I was led by my love for music, books, theatre and in particular films and my love for writing. I also always had a great affection for newspapers, particularly the culture section. My role models were not pop-stars or political figures but my favorite film and music reviewers. Journalism, I had the impression, had to be the most desirable and fulfilling profession there was.

I started to study journalism in Zurich and after about three years I took a year off to go to the European Film College in Denmark where I attended an eight-month intensive course to learn about the practical side of filmmaking. I then went back home and finished my studies.

During and shortly after my journalism studies I started to write about film for newspapers. Soon I learned that writing is not only a pleasurable experience, but mostly hard work, a struggle even. Especially when I received the assignment to write about a film I was not that interested in or one I had a hard time finding a connection to. In the meantime I have achieved a bit more professionalism I am able to distinguish between films that are important to me and those which are simply work, where I have to try to communicate to the readers the best I can what they can expect or not expect from the film in question. Having said that, writing about favorite films can be just as difficult as writing about films I don't like, if not more difficult. But there are those lucky moments when I see a film, love it, immediately start to write and the words pour out of me. For those moments alone it’s worth continuing.

In Switzerland every big city has one or two newspapers that publish film reviews on a regular basis once or twice a week. Unfortunately we don't have that many magazines specialized in film, which is a pity, as I prefer to read in depth articles. At the moment there is a sort of a boom in the Swiss film industry. There is a tendency towards more commercial films, mainly comedies, which attract a wider audience. I am not particularly keen to write about national cinema mainly because I don't think it's necessary to categories films on the basis of the nationality of the director or the country where it was produced. For example the most interesting recent Swiss film I saw was directed by the young filmmaker who is of Croatian-Bosnian origin and lives in New York; she is Swiss because that's where she grew up and that's where her home is.

The most important thing a film should achieve is that it should trigger something, touch me on an honest level. I find filmmakers who try new things, explore borders and break rules interesting. Directors who are able to do that in one sense or another are in my opinion Lars von Trier, Michael Winterbottom, Wes Anderson or Michel Gondry.

My goal for the future is to get away from writing only regular reviews, instead I would like to try and write more background articles or reports.

What I would like to achieve with my articles is the most difficult question.

What I definitely don't want is to tell people what they should or shouldn't go and see in the cinema, even though a lot of readers use film reviews for exactly that reason. I want to share my enthusiasm for films that mean a lot to me and unravel the reasons why a film affects or disappoints me.

Sarah Stähli

top