Friday, April 18th, 2014
Ed – Gabriel Garcia (14m, Brazil)
Meet Ed and his extraordinary life. Fifty years of an unforgettable journey. Many loves, adventures and remarkable stories. What nobody knows is why Ed wants to end it.
Gabriel Garcia founded the hype.cg company whilst still at university and in 2010 the company began to specialize in animation graphics, and producing corporate videos.
He wrote Ed with his brother, Leo Garcia. The premise was to create a film without dialogue: ‘I had an idea to begin the short with a suicide and along the film offer some clues about what really happened for him to get to that point’ Gabriel told us. The film took three years to make. 40 people were involved in making the film. The most difficult aspect of making Ed was the fur ‘that is a very difficult CG technique, and it gave us a lot of headaches – we nearly gave up on it!’
Haunted By The Present, She Looks To The Past – Emmaalouise Smith (5m, UK)
Haunted by the Present, She Looks to the Past is the latest experimental short by British filmmaker Emmaalouise Smith. The film tells the story of a woman reflecting her life through memory in an audio-visual platform. Travelling into the past in a sometimes nightmarish state of mind, the narrative blurs and distorts into a new reality – revealing a somewhat colourful, burning new picture of truth.
The narration was written by Emmaalouise to depict an alternative state of mind between awake and asleep, and told in a way that manipulates what the viewer sees and hears on screen.
The short is the third in a trilogy of personalized projects by Emmaalouise.
Hello Sunshine – Dan Nathan (18m, UK)
Kate is the perfect wife with a problem. After twenty-five years her husband, Ralph, has left her for a newer model. She reaches out to a friend from her past, Vanessa, a 40-a-day force of nature with a drink problem. She is everything that Kate isn’t – mouthy, impulsive and chaotic and has a quick fix for Kate’s despair – vodka, grass and a road trip – and persuades Kate to take Ralph’s beloved classic Mercedes convertible.
Dan Nathan trained at the BBC and has previously directed commercials. Looking for a new challenge, worked with the writer Paul McNally for this short film. Filmed on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, Hello Sunshine was made on a shoestring budget.
Hunting For Hockney – Alice Dunseath (4m, UK)
Alice Dunseath is a film maker and animator based in London. After graduating from Goldsmiths College with a first class honours degree, she worked as a third assistant director on Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox. Since the film’s completion, she has worked as a freelancer in the film and animation industry in London and is currently completing a Masters in animation at the Royal College of Art in London.
Hunting for Hockney was based on a true story which Dunseath made whilst at the Royal College of Art. It is a digitally hand-drawn, animated short film that tells the story of two friends who go on a search for David Hockney as an escape from the realities of a bereavement. On the journey, we see how grief can toy with the senses, change the way we see the world and heighten the need for adventure.
‘After writing and re-writing the script numerous times, I recorded the sound fairly early on in the making process. I gathered sound effects, got friends to voice some of the parts and used a song by Tom Rosenthal for the film score. It is possibly the most personal piece of work I have ever made.’ Dunseath explained.
The Last Piper – Iain Forbes (20m, Norway)
Half Scottish, Half Norwegian director Iain Forbes studied at Nordland College of Art and Film in Lofoten in the north of Norway and The Last Piper is his graduation film.
The Last Piper is the tale of Ryan MacCrimmon, guardian of the last bagpipe on earth, and those who would see the instrument wiped out for good. We join him for the final part of his journey, at the northernmost edge of the world, where he hopes to secure the future of the bagpipes once and for all. ‘The image of a lone piper, on the run in an icy landscape, has stuck with me for several years. It was with this premise I started writing the film. A Scotsman marooned in a foreign land, his cultural identity tied to a single object.’
The film took six months to produce, with the shoot taking place in just three days. Snow posed a major challenge for the filmmakers, as it completely blocked the route to their shooting location. ‘I wanted to make a film about a subject many found to be humorous, and play with the audience’s expectations,’ Iain told us.
Laundry – Anton Short (3m, UK)
Anton Short started directing whilst studying for his degree at York St. John University in 1997. He has gone on to make several shorts for the UK Film Council and edits feature films and documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery amongst others.
‘The idea for the film is based on my own relationship with the girl who has recently agreed to marry me. We seem to bicker intensely about the smallest of things – in fact many couples do – and I wanted to make fun of this’.
The young couple in Laundry, bizarrely find themselves bickering about misplaced organs whilst trying to go out for Valentines Day.
Lines In The Sand – Michael Gilroy (17m, UK)
An actor by trade, Michael Gilroy attended the Drama Centre, London in the year above Michael Fassbender and Russell Brand. Lines in the Sand is Gilroy’s second film as a writer/director and tells the story of two young sisters who run away from a children’s home hoping they will never be found. It was filmed over 3 days in Jaywick, Essex which is officially the most deprived place in England. ‘We tried to show the beauty of the area especially it’s unique beach which our two characters came to love as their very own paradise’ Gilroy said of the film. The power of the film hinged on the two leads ‘I will always be indebted to those two girls, they gave the subtlety and emotional truth that I wished for.’
This is Michael’s second screening at the Norwich Film Festival. His first film Dance for Eternity screened here in 2009 and was later sold to Channel 4 where it has screened several times since.
Monotony – Joanne Postlewaite (3m, UK)
In a dystopian future a strange encounter breaks up the monotony of a man’s working day. ..
Director Joanne Postlewaite made Monotony using £2000 of her own money. The film was shot at Chromacode Studios, a small green-screen studio in East London.
Post production took place during the heatwave of 2013. ‘It was torturous,’ Joanne told us ‘but as James and I were so into what we were doing, we worked for nearly 24 hours one day before crashing on my studio floor for a few hours before starting again!’
Jasmine’s Revolution – Sam Johnson (9, UK)
Set on 8th August 2011, Jasmine’s Revolution depicts an hour in the life of 9-year-old Jasmine, who having watched the London riots on television and radio, goes to some extraordinary and poignant lengths to stand up to the family who ignore and oppress her.
Sam Johnson is a freelance director and artist based between Oxford and London. He studied film at Kings College London, before spending two years learning the ropes in production on films including X-Men: First Class, and Skyfall, shadowing directors, and location managing gory British horrors.
‘Jasmine’s Revolution was, for all the right reasons, a tiny little production. We had a shooting crew of 6, and our 10-year-old actress Alice. It was Alice’s first film, and she was a marvel. Her interest, confusion and frequent amusement with the process rubbed off on all of us. I’m most proud of her performance’ Sam told us.
Night Lights – Marina & Tatiana Moshkova (1m, Russia)
‘When the city is asleep night lights live their own life.’
Marina and Tatiana Moshkova are twin-sisters from St. Petersburg, Russia. Both attended a drawing course at St. Petersburg Academy of Arts between 2002- 2006, later studying animation and Computer Graphics at the St. Petersburg State University of Film and TV.
The film Night Lights was shot in 3 days for the weekly competition of the Cinemadamare Film Festival in Italy. The challenge was to make a film for less than a week at the location of the small town Stazzema. They used light itself and its images to represent the life in the town. ‘To make this film we had to stay awake all the nights without a sleep but it was worth it when we won the 1st Prize at the Weekly Competition.’
Pages Of Rage – Alexander Hinojosa & Sandra Ekman (1m, USA)
In this comedic look at the horror genre, a rebel teenager stumbles upon a book containing a mysterious history. What will happen when he reads the forbidden words aloud? Only time will tell.
Alexander Hinojosa is a self taught director and has worked with his directing partner Sandra Ekman on several productions, meeting whilst she was a film student. ‘We strive to make content that connects to audiences emotionally, whether it be through sadness, anger, and especially laughter. This film in particular is making fun of the horror genre, in a very obvious and goofy way’ Alexander told us. Whilst both have worked on large scale projects for television and film alike, this was a very low-budget film, with only Elkman and Hinojosa working as the crew. The film took one week to produce.
Paperwork – Adam Anderson (1m, Sweden)
Paperwork, a film every office worker in the land will recognise, sees poor little Olaf dedicated to his office job, but he makes a discovery that turns his whole existence upside down.
Swedish director Adam Andersson is currently studying at Fridhems Folkhögskola. and has previously worked in theatre and music . These experiences inspired him to make Paperwork. ‘The main inspiration was probably from dealing with bureaucracy when seeking financial support for different theatre projects. It’s also about how I feel about some of today’s clerical professions and remedial tasks of office workers. I sometimes think that work has become a purpose in itself instead of a means.’
Rail – Jack Tilley (11m, UK)
Peterborough native Jack Tilley currently works as a storyboard artist on a pre-school animated series for cBeebies. Rail is his graduation film for the National Film and Television school.
The basic idea for Rail came from just one sentence ‘An old man lives with his granddaughter in an abandoned train’. The NFTS gave Jack the opportunity to make a film with a whole production crew, including a writer. ‘I quickly snapped up Rachel Yelding to write Rail, based on our lengthy discussions about tone, atmosphere and my childhood memories living near abandoned train tracks. The film took 14 months to produce, and like any animated film, was in equal parts joyful and hellish to make.’
Around 4000 hand drawn images were produced to make the final film.
Woodwoo – Jonny Phillips (12m, UK)
Director Jonny Phillips trained as an actor at RADA and has been working for nearly thirty years.
Woodwoo is a slice through a working day of two tree surgeons, Jeff (John Kirk) the ground worker and John (Jonny Phillips) the climber. John is resentful and uncommunicative, Jeff attempts to connect with him but after a while gives up and drifts away from the tree they are working on almost leading to a catastrophe.
The idea for this film came from Phillips’ experience of working as a tree surgeon during a protracted spell of unemployment and was filmed local around the Norfolk area. ‘As with all low budget endeavours the process was very slow and difficult’ Phillips said ‘but we got a little help, and insurance from Rankin Film Production and some great breaks with locations and ultimately the weather.’
Posted in: Official Selection, NFF2014, 2014 Films In Detail