what we want!

Recently we were very excited to have two films from last year’s www! project included for screening at the BFI 3rd Future Film Festival.  Both groups had a great time at the festival seeing their films.  Shah, who was part of the group who made The Special Ones, said, “..it was a really good feeling to see our documentary on the big screen”.  Samantha, whose film Depression Diary was screened, has written a full report of the event, read on to find out how she got on and see photos from the day on our Flickr page… 

Ok, where do I start? On the 7 February 2010 my film Depression Diary was selected for screening at BFI Southbank as part of the Future Film Festival, an event giving the opportunity for young film makers to showcase their short films.

I and Suzy (actress who plays the teacher obsessed with cats in my film) sat at the front, just a minute before the event started. A man announced which part of the festival this was and the programme number, so people could orientate themselves. There was no time to read on the programme sheet the long list of about 10 films and their synopses. I remember the room going pitch black and the screen projecting its first few images, like in a normal cinema. They showed a young man skateboarding across various sights in London at night, eventually leading to BFI Southbank; it was the festival ident.

The first film flickered on and was shot very similar to my film. It centred on a young boy who didn’t speak but had his voiceover throughout the film, giving his perspective of life where routine has set in, I could empathise with the joyless emotions the film put across. There were a lot of shots with a dog as well and lots of different camera shots and interesting editing effects with very few actors. It made me think how people can have similar ideas to me and makes me strive to be as different as possible!

The next few films weren’t very much like mine at all. Some only lasted a minute long. One showed clips of various world disasters going backwards, demolished buildings becoming rebuilt, nuclear mushroom clouds turning to thin air, explosion damage becoming back to natural environments. I wasn’t sure what it was about until I read the synopsis after. I like how films don’t need to explain themselves and not all of it has to make sense.

They showed a documentary about a soldier and then a film about a different soldier returning home from war, then my film. It was surreal seeing the film again. It was soon over and I felt embarrassed. I don’t know why, I was just worried people in the cinema would think I was really that goof on the screen!

The film after mine was hilarious! It was shot in a way that brought smiles to faces and made me and Suzy laugh loads in the cinema. It was about an elderly gentleman who collects abandoned traffic cones and stores them in his garage. He said he finds the cones ‘attractive and they change when you look at them in different lights’.  The newspapers called him ‘The Cone Ranger’, ‘Coneman the Warrior’ and the film itself was aptly named ‘King Cone’.

They showed a film about global warming and a film about 3 Chinese musicians who hitchhike and play a 24-hour song by the fire with unusual instruments.
The last film was a colourful animation using plasticine with a street performing juggling man who is a bit annoyed with the public in general.

I liked being included with others who made recent films and I learnt a lot about short film making simply by watching what others produced; the way they did things. It left me itching to make another film. Who knows?
  
Many thanks to Summer Uni, it has been a privilege.

Sam

Sam outside the BFI on Southbank

18.2.10