The Youth Film Festival Jury

Hume argues that judgements of taste are not mere preferences: they can be supported by reasons, and the standard of taste is the joint verdict of qualified critics. The jury should therefore not settle the dispute by saying 'craft is objective' or 'authenticity is subjective'. It should ask which judgement is made from a qualified standpoint. The craft juror must show that 'Concrete Garden' is good by comparison with other films in its genre, not just that it looks professional. The authenticity juror must show that 'Sunday Kitchen' communicates a distinctive feeling or vision, not just that its subject is moving. Hume's ideal critic has delicacy of perception, practice, comparative knowledge, freedom from prejudice, and good sense. The jury can test its responses against those conditions: watch both films again, compare them with other finalists, and ask whether the decision would look different if the filmmakers' backgrounds were unknown. Hume does not guarantee agreement, because sentiment is irreducible, but he does require the jury to give reasons that others could assess. The practical upshot is a deliberative standard, not a formula.

Tolstoy's expressivism gives the strongest justification for awarding the prize to 'Sunday Kitchen'. On Tolstoy's account, art is the transmission of feeling: a work is art insofar as it infects the audience with the emotion the artist felt, and its value depends on the sincerity and clarity of that transmission. 'Sunday Kitchen' aims to communicate the intimacy of learning a family recipe; the long shots of hands and steam, and the uneven sound, can be read as part of that intimacy rather than as defects. The film's feeling is not merely described; it is enacted in the pacing and attention. A strong objection is that Tolstoy's theory is too moralistic and ignores formal achievement, and that the jury cannot know the filmmaker's sincerity. It may also be patronising to reward a film because it is 'raw' rather than because it is good. A defender can reply that expressivism does not require technical polish, but it does require clarity: if the sound is so uneven that the feeling cannot be communicated, the film fails on Tolstoy's own terms. The jury should therefore justify the award by pointing to specific moments where feeling is transmitted, not by praising 'authenticity' in general.

Draft rationale: 'The jury awarded the prize to Sunday Kitchen because it created a vivid and communicable experience of family intimacy through attention to hands, steam, and everyday speech. We recognised Concrete Garden as a technically accomplished film with a confident structure and polished sound; its craft was not in question. Our decision turned on the film's capacity to make a shared feeling available to an audience, not on the filmmaker's lack of training. We did not intend to suggest that amateur work is automatically more authentic, nor that technical skill is unimportant. Both films taught us something about how young filmmakers see the world, and we thank all twelve finalists for letting us watch.' This rationale is fair because it states the criterion, acknowledges the loser's merit, avoids the condescending 'raw talent' trope, and separates the decision from the filmmakers' backgrounds. A weaker rationale would say 'Sunday Kitchen was more real' without explaining what 'real' means or why it should outweigh craft. The jury should also avoid claiming that one theory of art has defeated another; the rationale is a public justification, not a treatise.