Jane McConnell @janemcconnell  and @futureartists

May 8th 2012, Salford, UK

In Emily James’ Just Do It, we watch news packages from major news outlets interlaced with POV footage from protestors scaling the giant cooler chimneys at the Ratcliffe Power Station. For a UK audience, a film like Just Do It is particularly subversive – even controversial. The protests were decade-defining – it was the first time we saw a domestic conflict of interests play out in new and old media – with audiences truly divided. Were the news outlets biased? Who’s the hero, who’s the villain? And crucially, did we agree?

As any filmmaker will know, this is when it’s time to make a documentary.

Just Do It. No Dress Rehearsal. And here’s some titles from more shorts and features: Your State of Emergency. Young Hearts Run Free. Sound It Out.

Every title has an urgency – each stamping a precedent, a protest; striving and independence.

Or, if that’s a bit too high-flown, maybe at there’s at least a deliberate link between the present tense and activism. In the US, it’s caught the attention of the Academy this year via Marshall Curry’s brave documentary ‘If A Tree Falls’.

And in the UK (through crowdfunding and hey – the rather traditional own-funding,) the entire scene has found itself leaning towards political realism for reasons that affect our lives in the most obvious ways. With documentary and documentary-drama (see: Jason Wingard’s ‘Louise’ (2010) for example) taking precedent in screenings across the UK’s major cities every single month, are directors losing sight of fiction film as a vehicle for change? Are audiences no longer wanting escapist routes from which heroes soar?

Or, are directors, amid government-enforced arts cuts and increased taxes discovering that the only way to tell the story about any modern hero, is to tell the tales that are closest to home?

Case Study 1– Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day Outlaws (2010)

In Emily James’ Just Do It, we’re invited merrily into a world of social discord and disenfranchisement with capitalism. Emily James’ captures this in her film, following our 6 activist heroes-of-the-story as they protest with campaign groups Climate Camp, Plane Stupid, and finally to the headline stealing Ratcliffe Power Station protest – as well as featuring unflinching footage from the Copenhagen Summit in 2009.

The film’s tone is more exuberant than darkly political, and avoids the pitfalls of being overly solemn or weighty. A good thing really, when the typical representation of protestors in the mainstream media is one of violent ‘extremists’. A bright soundtrack, which provides the backdrop for friendly narration, animations, maps and crucially – unedited details on the nuts and bolts of staging a protest – are all freely portrayed in the film. Just Do It follows James, Lily, Sophie, Marina and we even get a glimpse of Emily – as they resist arrest, blockade the Royal Bank of Scotland and take action. Perhaps in this case, the heroes of the story have been saved from anti-hero ‘terrorist’ status – and are real people.

Case Study 2 – Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal

Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal by Naomi Smyth, documents a four-year labour of love and subversive artsquat and performance group that take over abandoned properties across Bristol – a city renowned for street art, and unfortunately for the group, large property developers. The hero of the tale is Doug Francis, the assumed lead of the circus – even though he would probably deny such a title. (Eitherway, he is the go-to man throughout the feature.)  The documentary movie tells an underdog story of guerilla art performers; a collective of travelling performers who turn something empty and abandoned, into a work of circus and burlesque art. There’s footage of audiences queuing around the block who heard from each other via text or word about an underground show – as well as messy footage of the stars of the show fighting city councils, landlords – and putting in hard graft to reclaim derelict, dirty spaces and transform them in the name of art for all. We learn that during Naomi’s four year journey – her role moves form being the documentarian, to being part of an art movement.

WATCH THE FULL FILM FOR FREE HERE VIA DAILYMOTION

Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal – www… by futureartists

Are the Directors Heroes? Battling to get distribution

The ultimate struggle, it can be argued, for any filmmaker is getting people to care about the premieres are over. …No Dress Rehearsal’ has managed it – through decidedly independent means: pubs, pop-up venues and indie cinemas. This year, the film is crossing the pond to San Francisco – it’s just won the 2012 award for best film with a New York-based online distribution site, Dynamo. After laying low for a couple of years following it’s release, the film is now reaching brand new audiences throughout the world, working with the UK’s only independent film distributor, Future Artists. Interestingly enough, the distribution of Just Do It followed an equally subversive model. Screened in its near-complete state at Sheffield Documentary Festival in 2010, Emily James made the call for more funds to complete the movie. Then, after some serious crowdfunding, the film premiered, complete, at the following 2011 festival – to a standing ovation. It’s now screened all over the world, at pop-up venues, artsquat venues, indie cinemas and festivals. It even had it’s own “Recycled Red Carpet” event inside a reclaimed building.

Looking at the film this way, perhaps hero of these stories is the film director – actively promoting a film, irrespective of numerous failed bids to the now defunct UK Film Council thanks to a stream of extremely conservative public funding cuts made over the last two years.

We Could Be Heroes?

Recessions and credit crunches, it is often said, creates a surge in entrepreneurialism. Parallel to this, a cultural backlash to lower arts-funding in essence, leads to a stronger independent film scene. And weirdly, each film represents this as an entity.

Yet their appeal extends beyond the often tragic and serious narrative lines that often provide the blueprint for documentary film. The UK’s current trend for social realism has, whether deliberately or not, leaned towards that all-too-familiar hero’s narrative. Albeit, each film provides a rickety, handheld, yet proudly alternative (with a capital Alterative) story arc. There is an insatiable urge created within the audience of these films to wonder where the films’ thundering courses of action will lead to. But these courses of action are only set in motion as a reaction following, we believe, oppression by an assumed authority figure. In Just Do It, it is bankers and the police. In Sound it Out (2011, Jeanie Findlay), it’s the major record stores. In Your State of Emergency (2009, Mark Ashmore), it is the police and in …No Dress Rehearsal, it’s bulging property developers and arguably old-fashioned land laws that are guilty of perverting the course of our heroes.

A theme which links three of these films together, however, is the fear of a police state. In Just Do It, there is one rather revealing moment in which the UK’s sensitivity of an increased ‘police state’ shows the group not only turn their phones off – but take their batteries and SIM cards out their mobile phones to ensure they’re not tapped. The film makes every effort to show that protestors are, after all, human and subject to the same policing threat as any non-activist member of society. It’s this steady, playful tone, which allows the high-octane – and completely real – clashes between protestors and the police in the movie, to be the most memorable.

And yet in all the films, we find the real life captured within them throwing real-life enemies left, right and centre from all over the political spectrum. Many Uk directors such as the one metioned have successfully found their reactionary characters. And these characters are also the heroes – the ones who lead themselves and us exactly where we want them to: overcoming and moving beyond a domineering adversity – and often, government and financial corporations. And both the hero and the villain are completely unmasked, too, from start to finish.

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Extranjero evolved from various other shorter and longer scripts we had been throwing around for a while. We had become stuck on a sort of sketch, the image of a man in a 90s shellsuit floating above a street. That was our starting point, everything evolved naturally around that visual.

Working as a directing duo, we have different strengths, but we’ve worked so much together that we know what each other want out of a shot,  so we swap roles all the time. We never stop working, making short films and music videos – low budget stuff, which we try to make look like its had a lot more of production around it than it actually has. We generally work in a very small crew, usually us and maybe one or two others.

Keen to make Extranjero feel big as possible, we shot guerrilla in public places that would cost a mortgage to do officially, like Piccadilly circus and London Underground, and weirdly barely got any hassle. We did then have to get retrospective permits, after we realised that lots of festivals ask for them.

We are really lucky to have access to equipment, and to have supportive friends and family who don’t mind helping out in front of, or behind the camera-The biggest outlays on the film were probably train tickets and food. I think we totalled up a budget of around £100?

Our lead actors, Cristian and Evan we cast off the internet, and they were absolutely brilliant. It’s difficult working with actors you’ve just met, and the next week you’re asking them to bathe in a river and run around Piccadilly, shouting like they’re possessed, but thankfully they were up for it!

From the outset, we had planned the film to be no more than 3 minutes, and for there to be no bagginess, but as things went on we had to set our sights more at the 5 minute mark, but keeping it as tight as possible. We spent a long time in the edit, really trying to fine tune and not labour anything.

We don’t have much luck with getting things into festivals, but rarely enter anyway, being content with putting them on the internet and hoping people will watch it there. Dan entered it into the Sundance Short Film Competition because it was free, but really didn’t expect to hear anything back. We were both exhausted and working late to get a marathon job done when the email came through that we’d won… Crinan – “I didn’t even know he’d put it in, but could tell he wasn’t joking as he read out,.”

Once you’ve put your time, money, favours etc into something and fought to get it done, one of the more annoying things is you’ve then got to try to find someone who will show it, but as we’re learning, it’s all worth it.

We haven’t had any calls from Hollywood or Bollywood yet, but winning a competition for such a well respected film festival, and for our video to be being shown alongside some incredible world class short films is the best recognition we’ve had yet, and it’s really inspired us to make more stuff. Generally just keep going and see where it takes us.

Cheers

DAN + CRINAN

My first lesson in film curating was the strength of anti-curating; or rather the open-access short film screenings at the nineties Exploding Cinema nights in South London. There would be an array of super 8 films and VHS tapes that were played from whatever filmmakers and audiences turned up with and what was on the top of the pile. Subsequently, the nights were made up of shit film after shit film, with the odd gem shining out from the shit. But that wasn’t the point; the events were inspirational and original, with multi-projection film loops and old b-movies playing on the venue walls and these amazingly crafted programme booklets with essays and artworks from the Exploding Cinema collective members.

Basically, it was the spirit that made the events; you knew exactly what you were going to get, in terms of an entertaining night, and half the fun would be waiting for the next film, as maybe that one will be the masterpiece you’ve been expecting. Plus there was the social aspect of seeing the familiar faces and hearing about other film nights that were springing up around London at that time, including my own Halloween Society, which I began with my filmmaking school friend Tim Harding.

In the nineties, Halloween had a similar passion about putting on a good night, with the difference being that it was a carefully curated themed selection of short film and other entertainments, from cabaret to live music to comedy to live soundtracks. Club nights were also going through a boom time, particularly with the DJ explosion, and looking back we definitely aligned ourselves to how music was presented to an audience, with a dedication to detail that came through in flyer design, the choice of venue, the added live elements, and of course, the films chosen to be screened. And like the best DJs, we never showed a film we didn’t like.

A personal history of the nineties and early 2000s film club scene can be read in a piece I wrote for Lux Online in 2006 , where I look at the various nights, alternative underground festivals such as Volcano and spin-offs in more detail.

Also in those heady nineties days I was a regular visitor to the Kings Cross Scala Cinema. The Scala’s legacy has been written about elsewhere too, and was revived in the Scala Forever festival in summer 2011 which played across London cinemas and venues. For me, the Scala was the most exciting of the London rep cinemas because of its dedication and love of cinema that was evident in its lovingly crafted monthly brochure and it’s championing of leftfield films. Even though it is
often remembered for trash epics from John Waters to Russ Meyer to Ed Wood, my experiences there included discovering Scorsese, Malick, Altman and beyond. London also had the National Film Theatre, the Hampstead Everyman and regular double-bill matinees elsewhere, which were also fantastic for my younger self, but it was the Scala where I’d more than likely end up.

The Halloween Short Film Festival and The London Short Film Festival

Both the Scala and Exploding Cinema had that immediately recognisable brand and personality, which made them attractive. When myself and Kate Taylor founded the Halloween Short Film Festival in 2004, renamed the London Short Film Festival in 2008, we became part of their legacy.

With the 9th London Short Film Festival just finished earlier this year, the general vibe and feedback we’ve received is that audiences like a personality, whether that’s myself and Festival Producer Chloë Roddick or the overall Festival branding via it’s brochure print design and the sort of screenings and events that we put on.

There’s no denying that branding and personality go hand in hand with curation and programming, and this also extends to partnering up with other organisations for the Festival, for them to host their own events. When we approach the likes of Club des Femmes, Passenger Films, Making Tracks, Peccadillo Pictures, Salon des Refuses, Midnight Movies etc, it’s because we consider them fellow travellers on the UK film scene, who have a certain ethos and taste that audiences into independent film can trust and follow. We give them free range to programme what they want to do and trust them implicitly to deliver an excellent screening or event. In the first few years LSFF extended this kind of programming into music as well, bringing in the likes of Eat Your Own Ears or Artrocker to run live gig events / parties, as we liked their ethos and tastes too.

In those first few years, myself and Kate were always on the same wavelength regarding what the Festival would be, through our combined love of DIY culture, fanzines, lo-fi style and music. With little budget, we initially marketed the festival on our personalities as if we were a band, with a series of annual flyers featuring us looking more like musicians than programmers. This wasn’t meant or hopefully perceived as an arrogance, but more as an approachable ‘we are the Festival’ vibe; since Kate left, the two Festival Producers Carla MacKinnon (2010) and currently Chloë Roddick were also personal friends before we worked together, so we have a mutual understanding of what LSFF is. That instinctual ethos continues to the Festival today.

Programming Short Films

Foremost LSFF (and Halloween Society before it) is a short film festival, and I’d like to give an in-road into how the 300 shorts screened are selected from the 800+ sent in. For the first six years, films were selected by Kate and I in intensive sessions over a few days, and since then they have been whittled down by a tiny team, or in most cases just me alone. Filmmakers not accepted to screen may argue (and they often do) that this curatorial process is unfair; just one or two people making a final decision on what goes through, because that programmer may simply not like that kind of film. Without wishing to sound arrogant, a simple answer could be ‘tough’, but to demystify how my curation works takes in a number of elements.

Firstly there is no denying that over time one gets an understanding of how audiences respond to films, through honing programmes in public to see what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes making mistakes and running unsuccessful events can be equally helpful, like in other artforms. Also, many years of watching short films gives you an overview and often an innate understanding of the film as soon as you press play; short film subject matter hasn’t really changed in those 20 years, even if new voices find different ways of telling those stories, but it’s exciting seeing what’s coming through and then finding films that gel or have a conversation with each other, and then putting those films together into a programme.

As programming is my job, ostensibly I do year-round research, attending events from brand new pop-up screenings around London, which emerge year after year, to keep the scene healthy and new, and attending other festivals to see how they work, both across the UK and internationally. Every new event or screening can act as an inspiration, and it’s important not only to see as much work as possible but to actually go to other events and festivals, to see how they do it. Also, by getting out there, you build relationships, with peers, filmmakers, other festival programmers and audiences in general. To sum up, audiences will get to trust the programmer.

Many other festival programmes are run differently and are programmed by viewing committees, seeing this as a fairer process. But I believe the power of the overall programme can then become fragmented. To use a music analogy, radio DJ John Peel spent 40 years at the forefront of promoting new talent purely on the instinct of what he liked and wanting his audiences to also hear it. Of course, Peel gave us gabba techno and speed metal, but he also gave us The Smiths, Buzzcocks and was an early champion of hip hop, but he hated REM and American college rock, and refused to play them; we loved him for all these things.

In those 10 years since we founded the Festival, I’ve also worked as a programmer on a number of other festivals, and I try to bring my ethos where I go. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done as one of the shorts programmers at the BFI London Film Festival (LFF); the feedback I’ve had at the Festival following screenings from selected filmmakers and random audiences has been very strong. It’s been noted that these programmes have a personality, and I’m very much about people being aware that it’s me selecting the work to screen. But there has also been detractors, saying the films are too dark and dense, and I’ve entered into debates over certain programmes in the way you would over a feature film you’d just seen. I’ve even had comments where an audience member really didn’t like the films, but there were images and stories that are ingrained on their mind that will keep them thinking and discussing for a while.

Programming Styles

An inspiration at LFF is programmer Mark Webber, who founded and programmes the Experimenta strand. Offthecuth cinema blogger Sam Cuthbert says: “I love seeing what Mark Webber brings to LFF. I assume (wrongly or rightly) that Mark has spent the year seeking things out around the world to deliver them to me in a nice neat package come September and through his talks and programme notes I understand and can reason his choices. Importantly, I may not like or enjoy the films but I can see why he’s brought them to my attention.”

The other Festival I’ve programmed since its inception in 2008 is Branchage in Jersey. Founded by Jersey born documentary filmmaker Xanthe Hamilton, from the outset Xanthe had a clear idea of what Branchage was to be for her, partly inspired by her visits to the True/False Film Festival in Washington, U.S. Her personality is integral to the Festival, even if she has to fight her corner, particularly as sponsorship has to come from the private sector where sponsors need a clear understanding of what they’re giving their money over for, and this is hard in Jersey, where there’s never been anything like a cross-arts multi-venue Festival before.

Xanthe’s ethos is about the look and public perception, which comes out in the Festival design, wording and even venue decoration; the 2011 Festival saw designer Molly Carroll set up a workshop in a church hall to build props and items to decorate all venues across the island. On the Saturday night, there’s always a big party in a specially-built spiegeltent which is a highlight and defines the Festival. The public love of the Festival is down to this attention to detail, and for me as a programmer its then clearly defined as to what films need to be screened in this kind of environment. I love the idea of bringing a rural documentary such as Sleep Furiously into an old barn on a working farm, with the milk cows moo-ing outside echoed by those on screen, and then to have the film’s director Gideon Koppel in attendance to talk about the film.

The programming is given care and attention to fit. Any festivals that has a blanket programming policy of ‘throw everything against the wall and some of it will stick’ has no overriding theme or ethos or even love of presenting the Festival to the public and audience. Branchage has continued a tradition of how to present the cinema of spectacle in an exciting fashion; with its array of alternative venues dotted across Jersey, from large scale live music & film events such as French electro duo Zombie Zombie performing live alongside Battleship Potemkin on the back of a tugboat in the harbour, or live film soundtracks performed by the likes of British Sea Power and Simon Fisher Turner in the majestic Jersey Opera House, or even smaller scale live soundtrack events in picturesque remote churches. These kind of creative events are integral to keeping live cinema fresh and exciting, and I’m pleased that Branchage has been at the fore of this.

It’s great to see festivals like Flatpack in Birmingham and the new Fringe! Gay Film Festival in East London be creative beyond the cinema screen. Flatpack takes over warehouse and gallery spaces across the Digbeth industrial area, and Fringe! pops up across East London in a variety of locations including the excellent Little Joe Club House made from wood and sacking and a carefully curated programme of retrospective queer cinema, by the likes of veteran producer James MacKay and Tate Modern’s moving image curator Stuart Comer.

The Cinematic Experience

City Screen and Curzon Cinemas are ostensibly chains, but what they do bring to the table is a cinema experience that goes beyond what is on the screen, and for this we must be thankful. The bigger Cineworld and Odeon chains are treating audiences as cattle, with appallingly overpriced drinks, popcorn and smelly nachos, and no policy in place to create a pleasant experience when visiting; I believe there’s now an on-going issue about multiplexes keeping the cinema lights up
during the main feature. With new sites at places like the 02 Arena and the Westfield shopping centres, I do find it inexplicable that designers and architects can get it so wrong. Despite being chains, City Screen and Curzon Cinemas do provide places where you would want to visit and stay awhile, with good bar spaces, comfortable auditoriums and friendly staff. It is important to mention this, as like festivals, it’s integral to a whole package which goes beyond the films on the screens.

Going back to the inspiration that one can take from both Exploding Cinema and the Scala is a love of film, and a curatorial dedication to bringing film to an audience that goes beyond just sticking a film on and projecting it. But the downside of a chain mentality is a levelling out of programming.
No one is denying that the likes of City Screen and Curzon Cinemas are showing excellent films, with their own in-house programming, but as these groups open more and more cinemas, we find that we have loads of places all showing the same films, even more so when Curzon Cinemas also have a partnership with Artificial Eye film distributors, and Picturehouse move more into distribution.
Both circuits still support festival and rep screenings, and we can only hope that this will continue; the Curzon Soho site is a venue for the London Short Film Festival, and throughout the year the bar is a hotbed of filmmakers and producers holding meetings, as it’s right in the heart of Soho. It’s a real buzz for these filmmakers to then see their films on the big screen there, and they may be the future of the Curzon’s feature programme. The newly opened Hackney Picturehouse, part of the City Screen chain, has an Attic bar for alternative events, which can be anything from short film nights to live soundtrack to comedy and club nights, which is also forward thinking of the venue. And both Curzon and City Screen have a strong support of one-off documentary screenings as well. There is an argument that there’s a levelling out of arthouse chain programming into a programming plateau of similarity, but there is still seem room for an alternative at these cinemas, even if it does feel as if it is hanging on by its fingernails. But what is also good to know is that there are still the single independent cinemas out there, with specific personalities programming them whether that’s Shira McLeod at Riverside Hammersmith programming double-bills, to Charles Rubenstein at the Rio Dalston. And these cinemas also understand the power of the carrot cake and good coffee.

New Voices

There’s a further world of exciting programming which is on the increase and a welcome successor to the likes of the Scala and Exploding Cinema. Both Midnight Movies and Cigarette Burns have been around for a number of years now, but are really coming to the fore in terms of what they are offering; both organisations were heavily involved in the Scala Forever season. Cigarette Burns are particularly good at a constant Facebook and Twitter campaigns that are actually interesting rather than annoying spam; we get virtually daily updates of lost filmmakers birthdays and trailer links that fit their ethos. These bitesize chunks can be quite educational, pointing you in the direction of lost gems and obscure curios.

Josh Upstart, who is Cigarette Burns, is a dedicated lover of cinema acting alone in a difficult world of distribution; it’s fantastic that these clips are all available via YouTube that he can link to, but he knows that languishing out there in a West London warehouse unused are literally thousands of 35mm prints of these films that he wants to get his hands on to screen, but simply can’t because of the inhospitable and difficult work of feature film distribution. Also, while we’re on the subject of YouTube, the fact that Josh has spent time trawling through the endless morass that is YouTube means that you don’t have to; he’s found those gems in amongst the skateboarding dogs. This leads to a larger issue around programming and curation in that now that everything is available at the touch of a button, we need someone there to sort the wheat from the chaff and put into some sort of order for audiences. The curator as gatekeeper.

Two new curators I’d like to bring in here work exclusively with celluloid, and bypass the problems that Josh has pinpointed. Screen Bandita are based in Edinburgh and they work specifically with found footage on super-8 film. Their events, with names like ‘Reels From Life, or How We Learned to Love Post-Modernism’, are more spectacles as they mix projection with found sound through the use of tape recorders and wind-up gramophone record players using 78rpm platters. The chosen films are obviously carefully selected and put together, and Screen Bandita’s arrival on the scene is incredibly important, particularly at a time when digital is becoming all encompassing.

Also working with 16mm film is Suitcase Cinema, who have been running events with single screening films which they’ve been buying up on E-Bay or from film distributors going out of business. Their idea is simple: That you can put a 16mm projector on a bicycle and take it to a venue (anywhere – a café, a bar) and set it up and show a film. Their screenings have been simple but incredibly charming, particularly as the projector is set up in the venue so the audience can hear the relaxing whirr it makes as well as experience the interval break to change the reels. And they carefully curate, whether they have lost 60s French avant garde shorts or a documentary feature like the early 80s film The Atomic Café which they screened at LSFF. Katie Jackson from Suitcase Cinema has also been inspired by Screen Bandita to develop ideas about what is presentable within a screening and I look forward to seeing where this takes them.

It’s also worth mentioning the legacy of Straight 8 here, who have been on the scene for 10 years now, celebrating super-8 celluloid against all odds. Their annual competition to make a film unedited on a single roll of super-8 film has kept the format alive in the minds of filmmakers, both emerging and successful. With doom and gloom news such as the demise of Kodak, it’s fantastic to see that Straight 8 are receiving more entries than ever before, and that the likes of Screen Bandita and Suitcase Cinema are out there flying the celluloid flag. In fact, not only did we host events with both groups at this year’s LSFF, but also commissioned a super-8 Festival trailer from Straight 8.

Inspiration Elsewhere

Sam Cuthbert has an enthusiasm for cinemas that show us their love by their passionate programming and interesting promotional tools. He’s of the idea that: “personality is king. You recognise names, you see the programmers come out at the end and say thanks for coming”. He adds that he “want to bring back the William Castles, the Jack Sargents, the Tony Tensers – whatever faults they had you can’t fault their passion for cinema”. William Castle was an American filmmaker who worked with gimmicks for his crazy sci-fi and horror flicks such as flying skeletons across the audience in The House on Haunted Hill. Tony Tenser was operating as an exploitation distributor in the UK, while producing the likes of Repulsion for Polanski, and built the first ever purpose built multi-screen cinema in Panton Street off Leicester Square in London’s West End as a place to screen multiple choice films. And Jack Sargent is active today as writer specialising in New York underground cinema while curating events at London’s Horse Hospital, the New York and Chicago underground film festivals, and the Perth Revelation Film Festival in Australia.

In Los Angeles, there are a couple of amazing sounding cinemas Sam has told me about:

The Cinefamily is run by Hadrian Belove, and is described on-line as a “mixed media event space, a hang-out, a church, a locus point on the L.A. landscape, a movie geek summer camp, a romantic first date, and a good place to get some coffee and a cupcake that’s run by maniacs whose idea of a good time may coincide with yours.” This definitely looks like the Scala’s little brother now all grown up, and it’s sad that we have nothing nearing this in the UK. The programming is a mix of new releases veering more towards arthouse and foreign language, with a regular programme of rep and special events. Also, it mixes trash and serious cinema, with the week of writing featuring a screening of silent classic Sunrise with a piano soundtrack and complimentary Champagne to a Valentine’s Night compilation of the 100 Most Outrageous Fucks in Cinema. It also helps being in Los Angeles that there is a steady stream of available talent, and also this week is a visit from ageing Cassevetes regular actor Seymour Cassell for an in conversation event. But then, surely we have a talent pool in London too, that we should definitely make more use of beyond a Fassbender Q&A for Shame.

The New Beverley was ‘saved’ by Quentin Tarantino, who runs an on-going programme of lost and cult films and regularly turns up to introduce or give a talk about what’s screening. British filmmaker Edgar Wright also programmes there, with a policy of selecting films that he wants to see; this is an interesting slant on the programmer as fanboy, as Wright has a big following among comic fans and cult movie geeks who will turn up to see whatever he shows.

Sam adds there could be a positive future off the back of the recent BFI report on film commissioned by the government. It specifically points out that there should be more film education in schools from an earlier age, rather than just as a GCSE option. With film culture away from Hollywood ingrained from an earlier age, this could lead to a younger generation starting up new nights and venues along the lines of a Cinefamily or Scala. Sam also adds that in the 1960s, the BFI ran summer schools for younger kids that was about watching films then followed by seminars to discuss what was watched. The BFI currently have an on-line learning portal, which is an updated step in the right direction, as long as the schools and teachers make use of it. To sum up, as Sam points out: “Programming is an art; you can give people the tools and knowledge, but how they put that into practice is anyone’s game.”

Thanks to Kate Taylor http://projectcinephilia.mubi.com/ and Sam Cuthbert @offthecuth

Your film can be a self-contained short or an extract from a longer film, no longer than 88 seconds in length. The short should draw inspiration from Silent House as a film captured in real time in one continuous take.

How To Enter:

- Upload your film to shootingpeople.org, then send the URL along with your name and contact details to silenthousecompetition@thinkjam.com under the subject line of ‘Shooting People Silent House competition’

- As the film is set over 88 minutes, your short must be no longer than 88 seconds.

- Deadline for entries is midnight on 20th May 2012

A short list of five entries will be sent to the directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau to judge, and the winning entry will be featured on the DVD release of the film later in 2012. On top of this prize the winner will also receive an Unlimited Card courtesy of Cineworld.  

In Silent House, Sarah, along with her uncle and father, prepare their long-time family summer home, recently violated by squatters, for sale. But broken windows and cracks in the plaster are the least of their problems when they discover they are not alone and there’s more than just mold concealed behind the walls. Over the course of 88 harrowing minutes, their idyllic isolated retreat is transformed into a site of horror as the family’s past returns to taunt then terrorize them, exposing a hidden and distorted history. Silent House, a re-imagining of the Uruguayan film La Casa Muda, is told in real time in one continuous take, just as Sarah sees – and experiences – it.

For more on the film, go to: http://www.facebook.com/SilentHouseUK

Terms & Conditions:
1. The promoter of this competition is STUDIOCANAL Limited (“the Promoter”).
2. This competition is open to residents of the UK and Eire aged 18 years or over, except for employees of the Promoter, their families or anyone else associated with this competition. Proof of age, identity and eligibility may be requested.
3. To enter the competition entrants must upload a film of no longer than eighty eight (88) seconds (“the Short Film”) in accordance with the instructions on the competition webpage. All entries must include the participant’s name and email address.
4. All entries must be received by midnight on 20th May 2012 (“the Deadline”). Entries received after the Deadline will not be considered.
5. Only one entry per person is permitted. Late, incomplete or corrupt entries will not be accepted. No responsibility can be accepted for lost entries and proof of transmission will not be accepted as proof of receipt. Entries must not be sent through agencies or third parties.
6. By entering the competition, entrants will be deemed to have read and understood these terms and conditions and to be bound by them.
7. The Promoter may pick one winning entrant (“the Winner”) in the Promoter’s sole discretion from all valid entries received before the Deadline. The Winner (if any) will be notified after the Deadline by way of the contact details provided with their respective entries. The decision of the Promoter is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Unsuccessful entrants will not be contacted.
8. If the Winner cannot be contacted after reasonable attempts have been made to do so, the Promoter reserves the right to offer the Prize to another entrant picked from the remainder of the valid entries received before the Deadline in the Promoter’s sole discretion.
9. The Promoter shall include the Winner’s Short Film as a bonus feature on the Promoter’s first DVD and Blu-ray release of the film “Silent House” (2011) (“the Film”) and shall provide the Winner with one (1) copy of the Promoter’s DVD and/ or Blu-ray of the Film in the Promoter’s sole discretion (“the Prize”).
10. By uploading the Short Film via the competition webpage the Winner irrevocably grants to the Promoter with full title guarantee a non-exclusive right to exploit the Winner’s Short Film in any and all media in conjunction with the Promoter’s exploitation of the Film.
11. The Winner warrants that all necessary assignments, licences, consents and grants of rights have been obtained from all third parties so as to enable the Promoter to exploit the Short Film without hindrance and without any payment obligations to third parties.
12. The Winner is solely responsible for acquiring all necessary synchronization licences and master recording licences in respect of any musical compositions and recordings contained in the Short Film to allow the Promoter to exploit the Short Film and the Winner warrants that all music in the Short Film is free and clear of any mechanical royalties which shall be a complete “buy-out” and the Winner shall hold the Promoter harmless from any payment in this regard.
13. The Winner will execute and deliver to the Promoter at the expense of the Winner such further instruments as shall be necessary to confirm or carry into effect these terms and conditions or to enable the Promoter to exploit the Short Film in accordance with these terms and conditions and the Winner will supply to the Promoter copies of all documents relating to the Short Film showing title to all rights and services included employed or exploited in the Short Film or credit obligations.
14. The Prize is subject to availability, non-transferable and no cash alternative will be offered save as otherwise set out herein. Arrangement for the fulfillment of the Prize will be made by the Promoter who may put a third party in direct contact with the Winner to arrange fulfillment of the Prize.
15. If due to circumstances beyond the Promoter’s control, the Promoter is unable to provide the Prize, the Promoter reserves the right to award a substitute Prize in the Promoter’s sole discretion. The Prize is subject to the additional terms and conditions of the supplier.
16. The Promoter reserves the right to change, modify, delay or cancel this competition if the circumstances require it as determined in the Promoter’s sole discretion and all entrants agree that no liability shall attach to the Promoter as a result thereof.
17. The Promoter will not be liable for any delay in performing or partial or total failure to perform any of its obligations to the Winner, if such delay or failure is caused by circumstances beyond the Promoter’s reasonable control.
18. The Winner agrees that the Promoter and its associated affiliates and subsidiaries and any other sponsors and prize providers shall have no liability in connection with its exploitation of the Short Film, save that no party limits or excludes its liability for (i) death or personal injury due to its own negligence (ii) fraud or (ii) any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law.
19. The Winner agrees to take part in any publicity reasonably required by the Promoter.
20. The Promoter reserves the right to disqualify any entry or entrant that breaches any of these terms and conditions.
21. Personal information about entrants will only be shared with the Promoter’s competition partners and with the Promoter’s agents to the extent necessary to manage such entry and participation as an entrant or, where required, to a legal or regulatory body.
22. English law applies and the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts shall prevail.

Here’s what the filmmakers had to say about their shorts, the competition and the prospect of having their film put infront of Nicolas Philibert.

Tired of Playing Basket Ball - Sam Rowland

I’m interested in making films about people who have clear talents or have a strong passion and good focused attitude about what they love to do. Max, the fighter, is another one of these subjects that I came across by chance and the fact that Mixed Martial Arts is somewhat taboo, was an added bonus.

Yet again, as I have experienced before when making documentaries, the story you set out to shoot is never as interesting as the story you discover. I was expecting to hear about what goes through the mind of a man trying to kill someone, but ended up hearing about the respect Max holds for his mother. It’s always interesting to immerse yourself for a few days in a scene you know nothing about as it opens your mind up to what goes on in the world outside your own bubble.

Being selected for film of the month means a lot, especially when you consider the standard of the other films on the leaderboard. It’s very encouraging to know your work is being recognised by your peers, the people who’s opinion I value the most.

Thanks

Sam

Chasing the Dragon - Santiago Posada

“You reap what you sow”

Paul “Scruffy” Pulford is a successful gardener and ex-heroin addict who conquered his demons by understanding the laws of nature that he once pushed to the limits.
Chasing the Dragon shows a day in the life of Paul Scruffy in his common routine of picking stinging nettle leaves in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in East London, which he then uses to make nettle soup. The transformation of the stingy nettle leaves into a healthy nutritious soup, runs parallel to the remembrance of his past and present life, illustrating his evolution and gradual understanding of his very own nature. Today Paul runs a gardening group, whose members are ex-users trying to leave their dark past behind them, gaining inspiration from growing trees. In 2010 Paul’s group was asked to take part in the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London and were commissioned to create a garden at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

As soon as we heard that Nicholas Philibert was judging Shooting People’s film of the month, we jumped at the opportunity. We love Philibert’s approach to his subjects and how he manages to stir emotions with the most simple and natural language. We loved his most recent Nennete and Etre et Avoir is one of the films we live by.

My Name is Sidney - Melanie Levy

I saw ETRE ET AVOIR. so that was my introduction. and then. now. ten years later. ten. literally ten. i have seen it… countless times. it’s a film I return to have dissected have studied have loved. the choices are so strong and the result seems so simple. to me it’s why i make movies. it’s what i want documentary to be. not just following some victory or defeat that’s imposed. but … another form entirely one that  looks at what’s inside us. looks at what’s all around us. you see it in the patience of the camera. you see it in the choices behind what’s revealed. you see it in the turtles walking across the floor. that achievement is what keeps me doing what i do. the hope of that. before i started working and filming with sydney actually i watched IN THE LAND OF THE DEAF. and somehow the same thing. it’s about .. it’s about people. it’s letting these incredible moments of intimacy between parents and children evolve, and partners, and students and teachers evolve. it’s not about disability.  it’s just about people. people with a unique perspective. people who because of their circumstance experience a unique form of community, unique dynamics within systems and families. but focussed on the qualities and dynamics that connect them to us not distance. and i feel like even if the process isn’t ostensibly collaborative, it seems like an even exchange. it seems like its job as a film is to shed light on the dignity that’s already there. allowing space for them to exist. you’re taking their world. and presenting it to people outside of their world. if that’s possible at all.. it seems to me, it’s what the film strives to do. And for me you can’t get better than that. what a job! right!?  what a beautiful job to have. if that could be my job description… i would take it.

despite the challenge of … all that comes with a life in documentary film. the sleepless nights, the jobs that mean working forever and never getting paid, the never getting paid, the… etc etc. despite all of it.  and so for that. what this competition means to me? it means the filmmaker who has been among the deepest sources of inspiration… of all the people who are doing this today and have done this before. would see a bit of me. a tiny bit of work that emulates this very high bar he set for all of us. so .. my god. it would be an honor. a dream really.

Onerionauts (The Dream Travelers) - Olivia Humphreys

“Our film was inspired by a joint experience the producer Mark and myself shared, working for a telesales company a few years ago. It was a pretty thankless sales job, cold-calling people from a list of ‘leads’ and attempting to sell them fashion make-over and photo shoots.Mark and I both quit / got asked to leave after a couple of weeks, and weren’t very disappointed! Mark told me he would rather get fired than promoted from a company like that, and so the idea was born.I wrote the script then – about an employee who reacted to being promoted as if he was being fired. It’s really encouraging that it’s had such a positive response from the Shooters and got through to the final round of voting. It’s the first film we’ve released under our new production company and we’re really grateful for the support.”

The Day We Danced on the Moon - Tristan Daws

“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colours, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.” Herman Melville

A mental health patient can try to describe the experience of psychosis: the voices they hear, the visions they experience, the unexpected emotions they feel, but rarely can they convey, in words, a sensation that most of us will never experience. For a long time I’d been longing to explore psychosis in a documentary film. I’ve always been fascinated by other states of mind, by fantasy and unknown worlds, but more than this was the desire to understand my own family, who have had a history of struggling with mental health issues. When I first met the Channel One band, I immediately knew it was their story I wanted to tell. They’re an incredible group of people, all recovering mental health patients that have found their music to be a way of expressing themselves that they never had before. We decided to take a journey to the west coast of Ireland, where the band had been invited to play in the Clifden arts festival in Connemara. One of the band members once described psychosis to me as ‘a journey out of ourselves into another state of mind’ and here was a chance to explore that with a literal journey to a very alien place. The film was made as a finalist for the Berlin Today Award and produced by Stefan Kloos, with gorgeous cinematography by Anne Misselwitz and sensitively edited by Alice Powell. It was also my first chance to work with animation, and I was lucky enough to work with Billie Loebner, who used a paint-on-glass technique to explore the world of outsider art, a style that has itself become an important form of expression for mental health patients.

Nasi Lemak – Orlando Von Einsiedel

Amar (All Great Achievements Require Time) – Andrew Hinton

Last year while researching a project in India i visited a school in Jamshedpur. I met a lot of pupils but when i spoke to Amar, who quietly told me about working two jobs on top of classes and homework, I got that feeling – the one where you suddenly know you have to film. So i did. We spent a day together, from 4am when he wakes to 11pm when he sleeps.

Back in London I submitted to a couple of festivals. I promised that if we won anything I’d share the prize with Amar. Amazingly, in July it received the Satyajit Ray Short Film Award at the London Indian Film Festival, along with a cash prize of £1000.

So a few weeks ago i went all the way back to Jamshedpur to keep my end of the deal, and share half the money with him. We had a big ceremony attended by the local press, the whole school, and all his family. It was the first time they had seen themselves on screen. We opened a bank account for him, and he and I gave speeches. It was a lot of fun.

Now we’re in the running for a possibly even greater honour – Shooting People Film of the Month. There’s some extremely high calibre competition, and we’re joining the race a little late, but Amar and I would be delighted if you gave the film a watch, and vote for it if so inclined: http://shootingpeople.org/watch/107158/Amar

1303 Kilometers from Maciej – Juan Fernandez

The film is not a conventional film , it´s a kind of portrait of Maciej. Maciej is a peculiar Polish guy who works in a cemetery, talking about his life and watching his work in the cemetery I have tried to explore nostalgia, memory, loneliness and death.

Maciej is a very funny and kind guy and I felt very attracted by his job and his way of life, he is in his mid fifties and works with dead people, but he never think in death or as he told me “I´m never old I feel young”, he never think about age. But he was always remembering his youth and his country Poland.

This has been my first film in England, it is my first project of my MA in Royal Holloway. It was really tough because I´d just  arrived  and I had to find a story, a character, film him,  so maybe the mood of the film could be under  the influence of my feelings of loneliness at that moment.

I loved to work in the cemetery, this kind of English cemetery. There were sunny and cloudy days, and also the Autumn was there with the leaves, I could use them and the music to direct the feelings in some way during the postproduction, music by MALAVENTURA, a friend of mine. I feel the film has a  really good pace and the character is wonderful.

 

The answers were not exactly a surprise, especially for a medium that encourages shallow thought. A lot of people’s first response was along the lines of “I hate lazy films”. Which is unarguable but not exactly a razor sharp attack on our cultural fabric. Shockingly people also came out against clichés. This is a subject close to my heart, if only because I enjoy the inherent tension between the fact that whilst it is still a cliché to say that we all hate a cliché, it is without a doubt now more of a cliché to say we only claim to hate the cliché and secretly we adore them.

But beneath this prolix sophistry there were some very solid arguments. Alex Richardson started out saying he was fed up with “crap storytelling” but when I pushed him he went on “I think, in part, there’s an issue with shooting style. Long takes, careful composition and blocking give a sense of place which is lacking, for me, in much that I’ve see recently – consequently I’m not connecting with the story and its world. I love the ability of a film to transport you. For me, works best when story and shooting style create coherent worlds.”

M Jackson chipped in with “the thing I’m finding most distracting is overwrought cinematography, particularly colour and contrast.” and Piers Cooper added “The prevalence of thoughtless unnecessary and annoying 3D. I hope it dies very soon.”

It was around this point that the always good Jared Kelly pipped in to say “My latest filmic bugbear is nonsensical film commentary from legions of folk who seem to blindly regurgitate lazy opinion. The very latest of lazy pointlessness … echoed everywhere has to be “Hunger Games is Battle Royale. It’s the new ‘Avatar is Pocahontas’. It’s incredibly lazy & only highlights a lack of understanding of story/structure. The same idiots may as well complain 90% of pop songs are structured similarly & because of that are unoriginal.”

Jared’s tweets arrived in my timeline just as @ange1ina added “too many mainstream films seem to be formulaic and the same goes for TV series” and very soon we were back in the land of the clichéd cliché. The debate roughly falls into two camps. Those disappointed when a story feels formulaic and those who say this disappointment comes not from the formula, but the execution. Or those who hate a cliché and those who think it’s a cliché to hate a cliché. Or to put it another way this is an argument between “the audience” and “writers”.

I’m being unfair but it was noticeable though that most of the people who said they were bored of formulaic story-telling were not writers and most of the people who leapt to the defence of the formula were. I can see why, after all the actual divide is between those who claim to hate a cliché and those who know that a cliché only feels like a cliché if it’s badly written and that well written clichés are everyone’s favourite supper.

For instance, as a writer, I find it fascinating and infuriating how The King’s Speech is used in this argument, co-opted by both sides to make both points. It’s a film that sticks very closely to the genre rules of a story about triumphing over adversity. It does though play some clever strokes to kid you into thinking it’s not doing that. You know, like making him a King and making his problem really insignificant compared with all those guys who are about to die in his name. Clever little writerly tricks like that keep the appearance of novelty and depending on who you are this is either precisely why the film was a surprise success or why you were surprised to find you hated it. Either way, you can see why hearing someone complain about sticking to a formula then praising the King’s Speech for being different is a bit like someone saying that they’re a vegetarian but that they do eat fish. And chicken.

That said, whilst my sympathies naturally fall with those who have taught themselves to see the bolt-marks that hold a story together, there was a certain tone of certainty that caught in my throat. I know the audience are morons and we only pretend that they’re not because otherwise it’d be embarrassing; but nevertheless to hear writers insist that the formula isn’t the problem, to hear that implicit line that anyone who thinks a film is bad because it’s formulaic needs to read to Syd Field… well it does sound kinda out of touch.

I’m here to praise Structure not to bury it, but we must accept that we are in an arms race with our audience. If they feel bored, that’s because we’re boring them. Shouting “You’re not bored” isn’t going to help. So what are the new clichés? What are the elements of genre that feel flabby? What are the story beats that have exhausted their ability to surprise? What are the shots you despise? The scores you have heard?

Come on Shooters… what do you really hate about films?

#OCCUPYMEDIA.

One Film Versus The World. The Lost Generation.

They occupied Wall Street. NY. DC, Chicago. London.

…What if they occupied the media?

#occupymedia

New Manchester film The Lost Generation is the UK’s newest feature film to be released independently – at the end of the world – on the 20^th December 2012, which takes a searing look at freedom, cyberwarfare and our idea of celebrity.

FILM SYNOPSIS

“Think of a law. She’s broken it. Think of a crime. She’s committed it. Sarah Jane (SJ) signs up to the ultimate reality TV show.

The rules are simple. Kill your opponent, stay at the top of the leader board, win 10 million pounds.

Fail, and you’re dead.

Set in a dystopic present-day world, public executions have come back into vogue – only with a gory, reality-TV twist. The Lost Generation exists in a world governed by a corrupt media who have the police in their pocket. Able to scandalise the government at the drop of a phone, the media creates propaganda on how to live a life – and left desperate civillians in its wake.

But there is hope.

They are called The Unknown.

An underground movement, fragmented youth in revolt, rebels with a cause, are waiting for the right moment to strike back…The Unknown rescue SJ from her certain fate. Despite being part of the walking dead, SJ is taken away and shown a world where choice is a possibility. But the only problem, is, she will have to become the evil she is trying to escape.

In an epic finale, SJ, once the hunted in a reality TV show, now becomes the hunter and those that created her will be her final victims.”

THE DIRECTOR

Director and producer Mark Ashmore, based his main character SJ on the idea of reality TV stardom – taken to a gory and violent extreme while her foil character, Blair, is based on activists within the underground occupy movements.

“SJ gets hired to kill bankers, MPs: The Lost Generation, it’s a revenge movie; and the idea is that by using all the villains of today’s society, we’ll have the audience cheering in the aisles,” says Ashmore.

“Imagine that a producer was let loose in a world where there aren’t enough new ideas…Taking on twisted visions of a nihilistic media corporation – with everyone thrown to the lions. So this is the extreme of a saturated media environment.”

Contestants in the game become unknowing rats in a maze, forced to break the law and exploited completely by a TV producer fixated by cash, ratings and recognition.

The universal themes of the individual; fear, government doublethink, and especially ideological and covert control have persevered throughout film and literature and can be seen in many 20th century thrillers – science-fiction of course – and even popular novels like The Da Vinci Code contain traces of these ideas. And they’re themes that are pervasive in this film.

The occupation of this film is one of existing within the framework of the media.

By blurring documentary footage from the riots, the Arab Spring and the biggest union march in Manchester, UK…  with the Thriller – and suddenly you have a tale of drama, cruelty and rebellion about the gladiatoresque voyeurism of disposable entertainment, recklessly chewing through the minds and aspirations of its contestants and viewers.

The Lost Generation is aimed at an adult audience within the era of the Occupy movement – featuring documented footage from real protests in UK cities – as part of the movie.

Victoria Connett, who plays SJ, says of her character: “A young woman took on something that was bigger than she expected. She’s joined up with a cast on a reality TV show – and she’s taken on more than she can handle. She has to prove herself. But all the time she’s thinking – why has she signed up for this? What was her motivation?”

The Lost Generation. Let the payback begin.

#occupymedia

A film by Mark Ashmore

Produced by Future Artists

http://www.projectlostgeneration.co.uk

I live in London and have never lived more than a stone’s throw from the M25, that magical bounding noose that forms the high particulate perimeter of Greater London. I would, therefore, sound two alarms about my thoughts on this. Firstly I love London. I love its monstrously relentless drive. I love its restless persistence. I love its unforgiving determination and hard nosed open mindedness. Secondly I fully admit that having only seen the rest of the country as a friend and visitor, I don’t know what it’s like to live two hours journey away from a cinema. I don’t know how it feels to have to travel across the country to go to meetings with men like me, mired in our oyster card slapping metropolitan myopia.

However, like so much in cinema, I do think that this is issue is just a trick of perspective. The grass is always greener, even when it’s grey and made of concrete.

From my perspective this moan about the advantages London has over the rest of the country does a great disservice to a great many amazingly successful and hardworking people and organisations. From what I can see there are thriving filmmaking communities in Brighton, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle and Nottingham has its own talent hot house that easily rivals anything that has come out of London over the past decade. The impact and success of the Regional Screen Agencies was patchy but the best, like Film South and EM Media were very good indeed and hopefully will continue to be so under the reorganised Creative England brief.

Moreover what I can see is a great many opportunities open in the regions that just don’t exist in London. The returning iFeatures scheme knocks the pants off Microwave, not only in budgetary terms but in the depth and breadth of paid development it offers. The BBC is busily closing down TV Centre at Wood Lane and moving everything to Salford, Bristol and Cardiff. Great news if you happen to be in Salford, Bristol or Cardiff, less good news if you’re not but then that’s kinda the point about geography, a Londoncentric approach is no better or worse than a Salfordcentric one if you live in Cornwall.

I can’t pretend that London doesn’t have its advantages and I clearly feel that they work for me, but I’m not beyond an envious glance to the regions. All that funding. That sense of being a big fish. Most of all that sense of differentness. After all, there’s no escaping that part of the initial attraction of Shane Meadows was that his world felt fresh. I don’t care if that sounds patronising, it’s a weapon and he used it to his full advantage. It’s a weapon that you don’t have if you’re just one of the many many filmmakers living in London.

I’m not for a moment denying that it’s hard to make films outside of London – just trying to point out that it is actually no easier to make films in London. More cinemas, production companies and facilities houses means it’s easier to get a job in the industry but it definitely doesn’t mean that there are more people who actually want to give you money to make your film. Here in London our noses are pressed against the sweet shop window but there’s still a sign on the door saying no more than five kids at any one time.

Fundamentally the one advantage I think living in London gives you is that it robs you of the delusion that not living in London is the reason your career hasn’t taken off. Making films is hard, making good films is very hard, making good films that excite an audience and reach into the hearts of millions is really very hard. If you’re not yet the filmmaker you want to be that’s most likely because it’s just a really very hard thing to do. Either that or you’re not yet good enough. These factors are both utterly independent of geography. And class. And race. And gender. And sexual orientation and all those other things that feel like the reason you’re not getting breaks but that aren’t.

You never need to change your address – only your state of mind.

Poull Brein brings the talent of a 62 years-old musician who dreams of making it big in Charles Bradley: Soul of America.  The documentary follows Bradley as he is in the midst of breaking into the music industry, all the while he stuggles to support his mother, himself, and at the same time learn to read.

Cutting Loose, directed by Shooter Finlay Pretsell, takes a look at prisoner Francis Duffy and his final time defending his title in the Scotland Prison Service Hairdressing Competition.

A camera follows a group of women around a job site in Afghanistan as they laugh together and fight eat other in Sayed Husseini’s documentary, Death to the Camera.

David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s film Downeast was a winner at the Tribeca Film Festival this year and is now being screened at Hot Docs. The documentary looks at what it takes to create jobs in America, after the closing of a sardine plant in Maine leaves hundreds of employees jobless.

Finding North exposes the truth about the hungry and poor living in America.  Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush’s documentary uncovers the truth about the working poor and its effect on what they eat.

The untold story of guitar prodigy Jason Becker comes to life in the rock doc Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet, directed by Jesse Vile.  After being diagnosed with ALS, Becker still continued to play music. Even today, after 20 years with his disease, Becker is still making music.

Serial killer, Jeff Dahmer, seemed like an ordinary guy to those around him, until his dark secret was revealed. Filmmaker Chris James Thompson uncovers the tale of a murderer in his documentary, Jeff.

Greece is currently facing great economic hardship. However, only in 2004 they were hosting the Olympic Games.  Nikos Katsaounis and crew look at the truth behind the cause of Greece’s troubles in Krisis –  GR2011 – The Prism.

Laura is a part of the social elite to the naked eye, but behind closed doors is a hoarder and a woman living in poverty.  Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa follows her as she does what she does best in the documentary Laura.

My Thai Bride, directed by David Tucker, looks at the relationship between a man and his younger Thai wife, whom may or not being using him for his money.

As popping pills becomes more popular in the States, so does drug abuse. Donal Mosher’s film, Off Label, uncovers the tale of pharma-culture in America.

Ping Pong looks at the lives of eight pensioners and their strive to compete in a competition that will prove to the world that they are still going strong. Directed buy Shooter Hugh Hartford.

Kahlil Gibran’s book has been transformed into a documentary that shows how to find beauty in the everyday. The Prophet has been wonderfully filmed by Gary Tarn.

Becoming friends with celebrities such as George Clooney and Johnny Deep is no easy task to accomplish. However, Radioman has appeared along side these actors and many more in more than 100 cameos.  Now its time for him to shine and have his chance to break into the movie industry in Radioman by Mary Kerr.

Is there such a thing as unbiased information anymore? Jean-Philippe Tremblay unearths what goes on behind closed doors of the news industry in Shadows of Liberty.

We Are Wisconsin shows the different faces of protests and what walks of life they may be from, in Amie William’s documentary.

Good luck to all Shooters in this years Hot Docs!

Winner of the Documentary Short Jury Award was Seth Keal with his documentary Catcam.  Following the cat around all day was easy when it had a camera tied to its collar.  Seth Keal’s film has been officially selected at numerous other festivals, such as the Tribeca Film Festival.  Good job Seth!

Tali Yankelevich won the SX Global Shorts Jury Award for his film The Perfect Fit. The Perfect Fit is a film, not about the ballerina’s that wear ballet shoes, but about the men who make them.  It takes a look behind the craft of making shoes for delicate, graceful dancers by strong, diligent men who put their time, effort, and thought into making the perfect fit. Also, nominated at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Maker, directed by Chistopher Kezelos, may not have won at the SXSW Festival in Texas for the film itself, but Kezelos didn’t go home empty handed. The Maker won the Audience Award for Excellence in Poster Design. The short film shows that this life is short and it’s important to make the most of every moment. Most importantly “life is what you make it.” Click here to see the brilliant poster! http://bit.ly/Hnvnx9