On Friday, the London Short Film Festival rolls around for its thirteenth edition. With thirty-eight programmes of new British shorts, six dedicated documentary strands, four international shorts nights, as well as a host of unusual retrospectives, it looks to be the most packed, bumper edition of the UK’s largest showcase of short film yet.

Firstly, our congratulations to the 100+ Shooting People members who have work included in the festival. Normally, we’d attempt to list our talent, but with so many individuals involved, we can just suggest you go to a short film programme, and assume that there’s a film from a member there.

We’d also like to take this moment to alert you that we have an event at LSFF, as part of the festival’s industry programme. A session on film funding, ‘Show Me The Money‘ will explore the tricky world of raising finances for your film projects, looking at the opportunities available and how best to exploit them. It’s our first event in the new year, and judging from the success of last month’s Shooters in the Pub it should be a great way to start off your 2016 calendar.

Lastly, such is the scale of the festival’s offering, browsing through the (?)+ films can be a little intimidating. We’ve picked a few strands, films and individuals that we would recommend booking up for.

BRITDOC’s Luke Moody joins us to bring his curatorial eye to the first Film of the Month competition for the new year.

Normally at this time of year I like to add to the seasonal mood of indulgence by trawling my Shooting People blog posts and regurgitating anything that still comes across smart, useful or funny. This year though I’ve written little worth repeating. I have a good excuse though.

Back in March my brother and I finally premiered our first feature film at SXSW. From there on my year has been a hectic waking dream and my arms have been blue and bruised from a constant need to pinch myself. Though this might have culminated with our lead actress Abigail Hardingham picking up the Best Newcomer award the BIFAs at the start of this month, I think my whole year is best summed up in this film that my brother made whilst we were in Mexico screening the film for the Morbido Festival, a horror movie festival that runs into the Day of the Dead.

Nina Forever: Morbido from Blaine Brothers on Vimeo.

Next year sees NINA FOREVER released in the US by Epic Pictures and in the UK by Studiocanal and there’ll be a deal more roadshow to go as our time with Shooting People’s Mobile Cinema taught us that you haven’t finished a film until you’ve sat in the dark with every audience you can find.

But before all of that I just wanted to say thank you. All of us who are members of Shooting People share a flame for telling stories in darkened rooms and this community – argumentative, passionate, pretentious, practical and vital has never failed to inspire me. So yeah, thank you to all of you who read this blog, all of you who supported this film when it was a dream on Kickstarter. Thank you to all of you who came to see at festivals across the year. Thank you to all of you asking where you can see it next year.

Thank you all. A lot.

Some news from Sheffield’s Doc/Fest, set to run 15th and 16th June next year. Firstly, perhaps of interest to our younger and student members, applications are open for the festival’s enviable Youth Jury programme. Those selected get a full pass to the festival with access to some of the key individuals involved at a three day Directors UK event, as well as their own section to judge and prize to offer in the Youth Jury Award. Deadline is 15th Jan, so get thinking how you might separate yourself.

November judge Jeanne Finlay has provided us with her decision on November’s short film entries, finding Chris Green’s Tortured to be her favourite.

Jeanie’s new film Orion: The Man Who Would Be King is following a very well recieved UK run with an American premiere this Friday 4th Dec.We hope her success with the film continues, and look forward to what she produces next.

Master documentarian Louis Theroux joins us for the December Film of the Month.

One of the most prominent and respected figures in documentary, Theroux has been bringing his singular style of filmmaking to audiences for seventeen years. Having trained and worked as a journalist, Theroux transitioned into presenting documentaries first as a correspondent on Michael Moore’s TV Nation (1994), before leading his own series for the BBC, the highly influential Weird Weekends (1998-2000).

Please JOIN US, for the last Shooters in the Pub of 2015!

If you’ve yet to swing by our lively London meetup, our Christmas Party will be the biggest one yet.

We’re partnering with Jameson First Shot to finish off the year in style.
We’re offering free drinks.
We’re screening some blistering short films (including previous Jameson First Shot winners and award-winning shorts by SP members).
We’ve found yellow balloons.
We’re going to introduce you to the brilliant activism of Directors UK.
We’re going to host a free Christmas raffle of cool stuff.
We’re going to show you why Maggie Gyllenhaal wants to be in your film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRr6SM_YFSM

So come along, bring friends, meet actors, writers, directors, composers, producers and watch some corking shorts.

We’ll be meeting on December 7th from 6.30pm onwards at the Hackney Attic, 270 Mare Street, London, E8 1HE. Attendance is FREE and open to all, but spaces are limited, please RSVP.

See you there!

Xenia & the SP team

Anyone who doesn’t think very hard refers to cinema as a visual medium. This is not true and has never been, even silent movies had a piano accompaniment. Cinema fills your ears as much as your eyes yet sound is often a second thought, the thing you turn your attention to only after picture lock.

Brighton based bastion of cinema training and development, Lighthouse, are seeking to address this with a two day event focussing on sound as part of Cinecity, Brighton’s annual film festival.

The Sound of Story is aimed at filmmakers, sound practitioners, music producers and film lovers. Through a series of talks and workshops, leading sound and film professionals will discuss their work, influences and insights, offering a rare opportunity to learn about the power of the soundtrack, and the importance of designing projects with sound in mind from the start.

Their amazing list of speakers includes:

• Chris Watson – Wildlife Sound Recordist / Composer Frozen Planet (BBC) / Soundscapes (National Gallery)
• Magz Hall – Sound Artist Tree Radio (installation) / Radio Mind (installation)
• Barry Adamson – Singer / Composer / Filmmaker / Photographer Natural Born Killers / Moss Side Story (album)
• Joakim Sundström – Sound Designer / Supervising Sound Editor The Constant Gardener / Seven Psychopaths
• Martin Stig Andersen – Audio Director / Composer / Sound Designer Inside (game) / Rabbit at the Airport (cross-media)
• Anna Bertmark – Sound Designer / Supervising Sound Editor Lilting / The Goob

The Sound of Story is on the 17th & 18th November in Brighton, for more information please visit their website.

Suffragette Director Sarah Gavron judged October’s entries for Film of Month, in what proved a busy month for her. (Suffragette received its European premiere as the London Film Festival’s Opening Film that month.)

October proved one of the strongest contests of recent months. As she said, “I admired all these films. They all deserve accolades – they all worked very successfully as short films and all had high production values and compelling performances.”

Celebrating the release of the film that lifts the veil on the scheme that had a mystery masked singer​ pose as Elvis back from the dead, Orion: The Man Who Would Be King (2015), British artist and director Jeanie Finlay will be “in the building” as Film of the Month Judge for November.

Jeanie has an intimate, funny and personal approach to her films and artworks, creating compelling portraits of other people’s lives in a contemporary and innovative way. As well as Orion, her work includes​ Panto!(2014) for BBC Storyville, ​the Grierson nominated – Most entertaining documentary and BIFA nominated – Best documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax (2013), Sound It Out (2011) – a documentary portrait of the very last vinyl shop in Tee​s​side, (World Premiere – SXSW, winner – Cinema Versa – Best documentary)​,​ her Goth Cruise (2009) became the most downloaded title ever on IFC and Teenland (2007).

With Jeanie’s entertaining and magical storytelling – her feedback on your films would be gold dust. Head over to Film of the Month to submit your shorts before 14th November to get in on a chance for her to see it.