How does one earn the title ‘Movie Buff’? Is it given to those who can list all the roles Adam Sandler has played over the years, or does it require a more astute knowledge capable of naming the soundtrack featured in Gone with The Wind on demand? On Monday night, the title ‘Movie Buff’ was redefined as Rotterdam’s finest film scholars got up from the sofa to test their expertise at the annual Erasmus Film Quiz.
The 46th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam is currently in full swing, and as is tradition since 2013, the Erasmus University joined forces with the festival to produce a live quiz show at the Schouwburg. For those who haven’t been to one of these before, it’s a bit like the game show Jeopardy, but instead of 3 contestants, there are 27 teams grouped into egg-shaped clusters. With an excellent yet challenging curation of trivia addressing everything from Schindler’s List to Mr. T, only the most dedicated of movie-goers would walk away with the top prize.
Feeling Stumped
“I used to rag on my roommate for not knowing anything about the cinema, but now I know he feels,” said IBCOM student Alp Gasimov. “They would play fragments of films and I wouldn’t recognize them at all. Guess I should stop rewatching the Matrix trilogy and move onto some more of the classics.”
Gasimov, however, wasn’t the only one feeling stumped by the quiz.
“Tonight, we were given a lecture in film,” admitted Stephan Sunnen, whose team, the Luxemboyz, finished in 17th place. “We came into this thinking we knew quite a bit about the movies. That just wasn’t the case.”
The victors
Fortunately, like any good movie, a clear winner emerged in the end. The team of movie buffs went by the name Frameland, and it came as no surprise to EM that all five members were film reviewers themselves.
“I’m getting a bit older so I can’t remember all these names, but that is what’s so beautiful about team collaboration. When one person doesn’t remember, the others can give clues to help us say ‘Oh yeah, that guy is from that movie’ or something like that,” Anne Bilsson of Frameland told EM. “We watched, we saw, we conquered.”
“And we had drinks”, laughed teammate George Vermij.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam is set to run through February 5th.
