Fresh from success at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, our latest Shooter profiled on Shooter Films is rising talent Daniel Elliott, a writer and director who tried his hand at a number of jobs before seeing Hal Hartley’s TRUST compelled him to enrol in film school in Newcastle. His student films were all award winners and all his short films have won international acclaim; from best European Short Film at Venice to a Silver Bear at Berlin and he managed to fit in some 3-minute mini-dramas for Channel 4, as well. Now he is working hard at developing his first feature, backed by the UKFC Development Fund. No mean talent is Dan – and he’s also a good man behind a camera. A documentary he shot at film school about a fellow student’s return to Ruanda after the genocide there certainly made people sit up at Dan’s year’s graduation screening. Dan talks about how his career developed from there and about the making of his Berlin Silver Bear winner, the short film JADE.

Shooter Azeem Khan wanted to make a short drama about mental illness in the family, something with which he was personally familiar. He was also keen to have his British Asian community look upon this condition openly, as an illness and not as a family secret. His ideas impressed those on the front line of tackling mental illness,who came up with enough of a budget to bring the project to fruition. The resulting film is an award-winner that is also shooting up the leader boards of Shooting People’s Film of The Month for April 2009

Amy Neil struck gold with her first short film Can’t Stop Breathing, a sensitive portrayal of a woman looking after her dementia-suffering mother, which won a Scottish BAFTA and was nominated for a BAFTA. She has since made two more short films and is now working on the script for her first feature film, with help from her mentor Iain Softley.

Dynamic duo Loren Slater and Kerry Kolbe have spent the last six years making films together and inspiring others to do the same through their Cumbria-based film production and training company. Barrow-in-Furness may seem like an unlikely centre for cinematic advancement, but thanks to Signal Films it has become the envy of independent filmmakers all over the country. Their co-production Dead Dog screened in the UK shorts competition at Edinburgh 2008 and their new film, The Wake, which they co-wrote, directed and produced, recently premiered at the London Short Film Festival.

Champion of the underdog, the heartbroken, the vulnerable, Shooter Esther May Campbell’s star is rising dramatically, following a number of highly cinematic short films, which have now been eclipsed by her latest cinematic short SEPTEMBER. It has been doing extremely well on the festival rounds and was nominated for and gained, the BAFTA short film award. Even greater things are now expected…

Shooter Chris Jones, feature filmmaker, author of the Guerrilla filmmaker series of handbooks and filmmaking mentor, has turned his hand to short films. He went for a big, emotional canvas of the cinematic kind and filmed on 35mm to get the richest possible image for his story. His arresting 13- minute short, called GONE FISHING, took the Rhode Island International Film Festival by storm and has repeated its success everywhere else it has been seen. The vibes are all good and Chris Makes no secret of his aspirations for the film. He hopes it might be put up for the short film Academy Award. With nominees due to be announced any day now, Shooters are all backing him to be recognised. A talent as big and as versatile as this one cannot be denied its place among the best, worldwide. Good luck Chris and at Shooting People we are all rooting for you. You deserve not just another win, but a very special one…

Loss of a finger resulted in Neville Steenson ten-year career as a joiner to come to an end, but fired his enthusiasm for writing. Through Shooting People he tied up with producing partner Charlie Blackfield and his first film as a director was screened by Sky TV on Halloween. Now "Reclaimed" has been accepted by the New York City Horror Film Festival and Neville's off to the screening in the Big Apple

Three people meet at university, set up a company and start making a documentary film about a friend. Six years later they finish it - and a couple more on the way - and find themselves nominated for two Grierson Awards for their first film. Shooting stars Adam Lavis, William Hood, Katrina Mansoor tell us their story...

Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss have made a nonfiction war film for our times. Full Battle Rattle takes us into the world of a hot, desert climate, not in the Middle East, but in California’s Mojave Desert, where the US Army has built a “virtual Iraq,” replete with Iraqi citizens, full-scale villages, insurgents, and the American troops that will eventually be deployed into this run-away freight train of a war. A billion dollars has been spent by the army on an urban warfare simulation, populated by hundreds of role-players. Moss and Gerber follow an army battalion through this simulation, posting themselves with the soldiers, as they go through their rotation, and in the fictional town of Medina Wasl, aka Junction City. This was the first time any filmmaker or journalist had been given access to the simulation site and these two talented filmmakers, teaming up for the first time as co-directors, made the most out of that privilege. The footage they individually shot in each location comes together in a tour-de-force film that does not shy away from the surrealism, absurdity and pathos that real war brings. They clearly pay homage to films such as Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and Altman’s Nashville and M*A*S*H. In January of this year, the film world-premiered at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, Panorama, and also won a special jury prize at the ’08 SXSW Film Festival back in March. They also exhibited at Hot Docs in Toronto in April where I first saw this amazing film. Opening July 9 for its US theatrical run at Film Forum, New York and also playing at Film Forum West in Seattle, the film will continue its international festival run. I had a wonderful chat over lunch with this dynamic filmmaking duo one spring afternoon about their mind-blowing, and ultimately, incredibly moving film:

We Are Wizards is a documentary about the creative community that has sprung up around the Harry Potter books, including the musical sensation known as Wizard Rock. At its heart it is a film about the joys of fandom and it has been delighting audiences at festivals around the country from SXSW to and the Sarasota Film Festival. Director Josh Koury tells us more.