Film Festivals Get Your Name Out There!

Film Festivals have become a huge part of cinema’s history. Ever since their start in 1932 at a festival in Venice, there have been more and more festivals and they have spread all over Europe and then the world. This first American film festival was the Columbus International Film and Video festival in 1953. Film festivals, in today’s culture, don’t seem as prestigious as the Oscars or other award shows to the uneducated in Film, but they have pros and cons of their own. Some very successful films have come up from being noticed at film festivals.

A major advantage to being entered in film festivals is that it gets your name as a film maker out in the world of cinema. An example of this is the LA Shorts Fest. For the LA Shorts Fest has 9 categories: Best Creative Commercial, Best Documentary, Best Experimental, Best Animation, Best Comedy, Best Drama, Best Foreign Film, Best of Fest, and Special Recognition. The winner of the Best Creative Commercial was called “ Way of Money” by Tilman Braun. Winning this award at a short film festival helped him with his career. After he won this, he went on to winning a bronze medal at the “Die Klappe” in Hamburg; he was a finalist of the “New York Festival International Advertising Award” in New York; he won a silver Young Director Award at the Cannes Festival, a very well known festival; he was a finalist of the “First Steps Award” in Berlin, and he won the special prize for the “Porsche David Award” in Ludwigsburg. This shows that winning at that first festival really help his career and gave him an impressive résumé. Here’s his “Way of Money,”

The film that won for Best Documentary was “Killing in the Name” by Jed Rothstein. Winning this award gave him a good name because this documentary then went on to being nominated at the 83^rd Academy Awards. This shows how far you can come once you are recognized at a film festival.  Here is a trailer for it.

The film the won for Best Animation was “Zero” by Christopher Kezelos. He went on to win a Gold Award  for Experimental & Specialised at the Australian Cinematographers Society; he won best achievement in sound at the Flickerfest International Film Festival, and was nominated for best short animated film at the AFI Awards, showing he benefitted from winning at a film festival . Here’s the trailer for “Zero”

The movie that won for Best Experimental was “Stanley Pickle” by Vicky Mather. “In 2008, Vicky obtained a Leverhulme scholarship and CTBF Award, which allowed her to attend the NFTS. Vicky graduated with an MA in Animation Directing and her graduation film, Stanley Pickle, premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2010 to critical acclaim and has gone on to win twenty international awards.” – Curtis Brown: Literary and Talent Agency.

The short that won Best Comedy was “The Man Who Married Himself” by Garrick Hamm. Garrick Hamm had already made a short film that was noticed at a film festival before this one. It was called “Lucky Numbers.” It was nominated for the Chlotrudis Awards in Massachusetts. That one he only got nominated for but, in the LA Film Fest, he won Best Comedy, achieving prestige and a name out in the film world. Here’s a trailer for “The Man Who Married Himself,”

and here’s a trailer for “Lucky Numbers,”

The short that won best drama was “Paraphernalia” by John Williams. He had already made some shorts as well that prepared him for this win. He did The Magic Hour, Hibernation, Greenpeace: Half Life, Robots: The Animated Docu-Soap, Nicotine and Bullet-Holes!, and Off the Wall. He was already pretty successful but none were as noticed as “Paraphernalia.” Once again, it put the director’s name out there! York- Fabian Raabe made a film called “Between Heaven and Earth, which won the category for best foreign film. After winning this, he went on to winning Best Short Film at the Max Ophuls Festival.

Therefore, this was just one example out of many. There are tons and tons of film festivals around the world, going on today. All these directors success after winning awards at film festivals proves their importance to the film world. Film festivals, other than well known ones like “Sundance,” don’t seem like great accomplishments next to winning a Sag Award, Golden Globe or an Oscar, but truthfully it’s easier to get there with winning in film festivals. Film festivals get your name as a director, producer, editor, actor, or whatever profession in the film industry, out there. They are a very important step and resource to becoming successful in the film industry. Most successful directors would not be where they are today without a win at a film festival.

“Rundown” – Patrick Alexander

In 2007 this film won a Student Academy Award. This film was amazoing and the idea was totally original. Artistically I liked the symbolism in the colors. There was read in almost every scene and she is wearing read and black. Red symbolizes blood and anger. She hit the pregnant woman with her car and kept driving and then she had to report her own story. I thought her acting was phenomenal especially at the end. She switched from being so upset to her reporter smile face so quickly. It was actually kind of creepy.

“Nostalgia” – Matthew Toffolo

This was a short film I found on youtube. It was a very romantic short film. I liked it a lot. It unveiled the complicated story of a broken up couple through flashbacks. I love flashbacks, I think it was a great editing technique to revealing a story without flat out telling the audience. I also thought it was smart to make the flashbacks black and white; one, because it made it easier for the audience to tell the difference between the flashbacks and the present day and two, it helped make them seem like bad memories because most of them were, hence, why the couple didnt work out.

“Unnoticed Love” – Amit Khanna

I found another short film on youtube! It is a cute story about a woman trying to get a mans attention in a cafe, when really the waiter in the cafe is trying to get her attantion. I wish it had kept going, it was a very short film and didnt resolve, but i thought it was cute, so, ENJOY 🙂

“Snap” – Manolo Celi

I found this video and I thought this was a really creative idea. At first I had no i dea what was going on… I wondered.. why does he keep taking pictures of the guy hes running away from. However, as the guy he was running away from kept changing I realized this was a thing that he didnt more than once and it was all planned out. I thought the filming was good for all the running that went on in the small streets. The filming we well done to help the viewer feel involved in the chase. I felt out of breath after watching the short. haha! 🙂

“10 Minutes” – Ahmed Imamovic

This was very interesting. The two stories that showed the 10 minutes were so different. one guy, a tourist, just walking aroung Rome, waiting for 10 minutes to get his pictures developed. In the same 10 minutes a family living in a war zone get attacked. This short reminded me a lot of “The Red Jacket,” a film we watched earlier this semester. it a very short amount of time in “The Red Jacket,” as this film, the boys in bothe films lose their families to the cruelty of the same war. Even though this is sad to see, I tried to look at it as a film critic. I enjoyed that the camera followed the kid to get water and bread and then all that happened in the war zone in very long takes. It made it seem more real, like the camera man was really there in the situation with the young boy. Therefore, I thought the short was filmed sucessfully.

“The Plan” – Matthew Kalish

 

I found this video on youtube. Its the cliche story about a boy leaving his past behind him to gamble his money away in Vegas. I thought it was interesting that he went to such a colorful place, yet the film makers decided to film it in black and white. I also appreciated, as a directing and writing choice, that the girl got pissed after he took the picture. I thought it would have been too cliche for her to like him right away after he had talked about finding a “new love” in his voice over, but even though in the end she does like him and its pretty cliche, I thought how they did the ending was cute.

Teeth – John Kennedy & Ruairí O’Brien

I found this short on youtube. It is a very short film of two olf men fishing and their different stories of how they lost their dentures. It was very cute and funny. I enjoyed that even though it good quality with either tha camera or the filters, they chose to make it black and white. I thought that was appropriate for the scene being about two old men, it helped giving the scene an “old aged” feeling. Over all I enjoyed it 🙂

12:12 – Jeremy Cathey

This is another short film I found on youtube. I was actually kinda creeped out by this video, which was surprising. It was shocking because it doesnt have very good quality and I almost stopped watching because I thought it was going to be a joke, but it was actually pretty good at being scary for the quality it was filmed in.

Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv

“Stranger”

I found this short film on youtube, we didnt watch it in class. I thought this was interesting. It was building up a lot of suspense just by showing the people’s looks. We dont know what’s happening until this gang comes over and again just gives them suspensful looks. Finally the first two strangers band together to escape from the gang. There wasnt any dialogue, just by the filming and the acting the viewer can get the whole story. I believe it was sucessful because of that.

“Offside”

Similarly to “Strangers” the feeling this short film gave me was portrayed through filming the acting, not a lot of dialogue. I thought it was humerous that the two guys are listening to the soccor game on the radio, they run into two other guys that are on the other side of the fence, they pull guns on eachother, but no one shoots. They just stand there and listen to the game, but one guy gets excited by a goal and accidently shoots a guy on the other side of the gate, so they all start shooting eachother and they all die.