Star Wreck Studios, the guerilla filmmaking collective behind one of the most popular Finnish films of all time - and a big success story of online film distribution - have unveiled a teaser trailer for their follow up, Iron Sky, and are asking fans to help fund and produce the film.

Star Wreck : In The Pirkinning was produced by five friends in a two-room flat in Tampere with a small budget and the support of a few hundred fans and dozens of acquaintances. From the land of Linus Torvald, creator of open source (and world changing) Linux, the film is appropriately released under a Creative Commons license - Laurence Lessig's attempt to bring open source practices to other IP. The film was released in 2005 and was subsequently picked up by Universal Pictures for distribution across Scandinavia and screened on State TV in Finland, Belgium and Italy. Viewed online or downloaded more than 8 million times, Star Wreck has become, the filmmakers argue, the most popular Finnish film of all time. With virtual sets and Hollywood quality CGI effects, the films production values have been widely acclaimed, with the only criticism being that it's a Trekkie fan-film rather than an original concept.

“Iron Sky is a story about conformity: those who want to conform, those who want to make others conform, and those who refuse to conform.”
Timo Vuorensola
Iron Sky looks set to change that with an ultra-high concept futuristic space thriller. The premise is simple - in 1945 the Nazis left to the dark side of the moon, where they hid out rebuilding their forces. In 2018, they come back. A trailer appeared online this week (below) following a thirteen-part behind the scenes vlog . Under a 'Buy War Bonds' shoutout, the producers are currently inviting fans to pre-buy the DVD and a making of book in a special edition pack for €50, a kind of micro-pre-sales made popular by the likes of Brave New Films and Franny Armstrong . Tho committed to using open source principles, creating the excellent looking WreckAMovie community (currently in beta) for collaborative task management, the producers are yet to promise Iron Sky will be a free download, saying they are currently exploring all options. Tho if they make enough in micro-presales, they won't need to pre-sell any territorial rights to traditional distributions, which in theory would allow the film to  come out under a Creative Commons license. Watch this space...

One of the more promising schemes to come out of the UK Film Council in recent years, the Development Fund's programme for first-time filmmakers has made its first awards to creatives and projects reflecting the fund’s stated aims to open up opportunities for budding writers and filmmakers across the UK. The first set of awardees includes three writers who are completely new to the industry.

The programme aims to identify and support emerging filmmakers: screenwriters, writer/directors and writer, director, producer teams who have not made a feature film or who have not yet had a feature film released theatrically or broadcast on UK television, whilst also fostering talent that has already made a mark in shorts or other media.  In addition to providing financial support, the programme also includes mentors, with Simon Beaufoy, Ayub Khan Din and Pawel Pawlikowski already lined up. Details of the first six winners, whose awards averaged £10k, after the read more link.

From Sam Goldblatt of the 48 Hour Film Project: 

The 48 Hour Film Project (48HFP) will tour to Edinburgh for the first time ever in 2008.  Over the May 16-18 weekend, Filmmakers from all across Scotland will compete to write, shoot and edit a short film in just 48 hours.  All films will be screened at The Cameo on May 20 and 21. The 48HFP is the world's oldest and largest timed-film competition and takes place annually in over 60 cities around the world with more than 30,000 filmmakers competing to win the title of "Best 48 Hour Film of 2008.

The winning Edinburgh team will be invited to attend the Filmapalooza Awards Weekend (held previously at South by Southwest and Cinequest).  The winning 48 Hour Film of 2007 is being screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and the same is expected for 2008. Filmmaking teams of all levels will meet on the evening of Friday, May 16 at The Cameo where they will receive a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue that they must work into their short film.  Teams have until 7:30pm on Sunday, May 18 to write, shoot and edit their films.

All films will be judged by Paul Dale, Film Editor for The List, and Ian Hoey, General Manager of The Cameo, and awards will be given in several categories.  "We're excited to be playing host to this challenge," says Hoey.  "I'm sure it will not only be a keenly contested competition but great viewing entertainment as well."

Learn more about The Inaugural Edinburgh 48 Hour Film Project at The Brass Monkey (14 Drummond Street, Edinburgh) on Wednesday, April 23 at 6:30pm with a free screening of The Best 48 Hour Films of all time. To see selected 48 Hour Films, go to www.48.tv.

Registration for the competition is £45 and now open to anyone and everyone at www.48hourfilm.com/edinburgh.

Excellent-looking competition, submitted by Holly Barnes Thomas of the Society of St James:

The Society of St James, Southampton's local homelessness charity today launches its own film competition, The Home~less Movie Competition, open to the general public and to its service users and residents too.

The film competition asks only that the film be about homelessness and run no longer than three minutes. Holly Barnes-Thomas, the competition's creator explains: I really wanted to create an opportunity for people, especially the Society of St James' residents, to express themselves about homelessness. It's a great chance to raise awareness of the hardship of homelessness and help people to understand what its really like.

"It's a great chance to raise awareness of the hardship of homelessness and help people to understand what its really like." Holly Barnes-Thomas The competition is unusual in that it is open to national filmmakers as well the charity's service users and will offer a ‘buddy' system to link up people who have experienced homelessness with filmmakers.

The competition is also supported by local, award winning filmmaker, Alys Hawkins who produces animated short works from her railway arch studio in Southampton.

The competition will be judged by a panel of professionals in the fields of homelessness and film, with a glitzy awards ceremony in December.

For more information on the competition, rules or entry please contact Holly Barnes-Thomas on 023 8063 4596 or holly@ssj.org.uk .

From the brilliant Global Voices website , comes news of three contests for vloggers around the world. Two are on Spannish sites but are open to anyone anywhere. One is for mobile movies, one to promote causes you care for and the last to report news through online video. More details and sample films from previous winners at Global Voices :

From Spain, ElPais.com brings us the Movil Film Fest, an online mobile 1 minute video contest. Although it is geared primarily to locally made movies, which they call “national”, there are no restrictions regarding nationality of the producers, although only the local films will compete for the main awards, videos from outside Spain will have their own category. All the videos have to be less than 1 minute long and have been shot with cell phones or PDAs, what they call mobile communication terminals. There is time until April 21st 2008 to submit a video...

The second contest is a worldwide contest based on myspace.com social networking site. They are requesting for youth between 14 and 24 years of age from all around the world to “Film your issue” in more than 30 seconds but less than 2 minutes. Prizes include internships at different organizations such as USA Today, The United Nations and the Humane Society, however there are citizenship restrictions and mostly the winners will have to pay for their tickets, lodging and meals during their internships, and the $5000 USD College scholarship is only valid for US citizens, making the prizes themselves less attractive for international participants. However, the winning videos would be broadcast on different networks, TV stations and websites, making street cred and bragging rights the likelier reward for the foreign participants. Already some videos have been uploaded for this contest, and participants have time until April 14th to participate in any of the several issue categories.

Another chance to win money and make a name for yourself is the citizen journalism video contest is being organized by VideoNews24.net[es] . Although it is used mostly by Spanish vloggers (video bloggers), it is open to any person who wishes to participate. The contest opened on March 1st and will run to July 31st. The top three videos will be chosen from those with more hits and highest ratings given by other users and then the winner chosen from them. The complete guidelines to participate can be found by following this link [es].

From Mayavision:

Producers or production companies are now invited to send a rough cut of their unfinished short film to Maya Vision International, along with a completed application form. The closing date is Friday 30^th May 2008. Full guidelines, forms and more information can be found at www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/shortfilm

If you don’t have a rough cut by then, don’t worry as the Completion Fund has expanded to 2 calls per year allowing up to 14 short films to be completed under the scheme each year. The next call, 2009/I, is scheduled to open in September 2008, but full details to follow in due course.

Please pass the news on to all your filmmaking friends. We’d love to receive a bumper crop of exciting new films and look forward to seeing your entries!

The Arts Council's recently announced massacre for 2008 - which will see hundreds of small theatres, galleries, festivals and events across the UK close after total loss of funding - has received suprisingly little attention in the press given the implications. Those facing the axe at the whim of the Arts Council executives include the National Student Drama Festival, the Drill Hall, London Mozart Players and - the theatre which changed my life as a child - Harrogate Theatre which has had a 75% (£300,000) cut.

The news comes at the same time that the British Council has announced it is to close its arts departments, including the films department which has supported thousands of British filmmakers get their work shown abroad, leaving the arts world in complete disarray.

Meanwhile the Royal Opera House, where a stalls ticket for one of their 2008 productions starts at £126 rising to £165 (the cheapest and worst seats in the balcony are £30), saw an increase in its funding for 2008 to over £26m a year.

As well as providing entertainment and access to culture, the UK's theatre and arts sector makes a huge contribution to education and the economy, while providing a vital training ground for the actors, writers, directors, musicians and artists who have picked up a quarter of Oscars in the last 20 years (and done far more).

To make matters worse, Arts Council chiefs have avoided blaming the cuts on the Olympics or the DCMS, and instead argued that all the organisations concerned simnply weren't well managed enough, adding insult to injury. 

"Meanwhile the Royal Opera House, saw an increase in its funding for 2008 to over £26m a year."

Interestingly, the biggest recipients of Arts Council funding - the RSC, ENO, the National Theatre, South Bank Centre and the Royal Opera House - collectively getting some £100m annually, have not seen their budgets cut, but instead risen in line with inflation. Many believe this is because the smaller companies are less likely to kick up a fuss, or at least get significant press coverage. West End producer Thelma Holt told the Times “they wouldn’t dare take away funding from any of the larger organisations because they would be able to put up a huge fight. So they have mainly gone for the smaller companies.”

submitted by BAFTA

'60 Seconds of Fame' is back. This exciting and innovative short film challenge was launched by BAFTA and Orange in 2006, and attracted more than 250 entries. This year, aspiring filmmakers are invited to submit a 60 second short film, based on the theme ‘unite'. The winning film will be featured on the BBC1 broadcast of the Film Awards, watched by millions around the world.

 submitted by Maya Vision

Producers or production companies can send their unfinished short film NOW to Maya Vision International along with a completed application form. The closing date is 14th December 2007.

If you don't have a rough cut by then, don't worry as the Completion Fund has expanded to 2 calls per year allowing up to 14 short films to be completed in a year. The second call will open in March and close in April 08.

Please pass the news on to all your film-making friends. We'd love to receive a bumper crop of exciting new films. Full guidelines, forms and more information can be found online.

New UK Film Council Development Fund head Tanya Seghatchian has unveiled her new plans for the department, with a big focus on supporting writers who haven't had a feature released yet. At first glance this looks like a real step forward for both simplifying the system and supporting new talent. She writes below:

From Tanya Seghatchian...
 
As you may know, I took over as the Head of the Development Fund at the UK Film Council earlier this year and have spent the last few months reviewing the fund and its practices, in line with both the UK Film Council’s policies and objectives and my own experience of working in film in the UK. 

Glasgow-based producer Gillian Berrie is urging Scotland's Holyrood Parliament to invest in studios and other facilities to help the country match the output of foreign rivals. Berrie, of Sigma Films the company behind Hallam Foe which opens the Edinburgh International Film Festival this week, said given the right level of investment and strategy, Scotland could develop a film industry to rival Denmark or France.

Figures published by the UK Film Council reveal that British film is a thriving industry. Film provided the British economy with £4.3 billion during 2006, representing a 39% increase from two years ago, the last year for which figures were collated.

Film Council CEO John Woodward warned that these figures could dwindle unless the government continued its support in terms of tax credits.

The research found that, after taking into account the new film tax relief plan introduced, the cost of producing a film in the UK is set to fall and by 2010 will be about 27% less than the cost of producing it in the US and only 7% higher than the Czech Republic.

The Film Business Academy is the world's first international centre dedicated to the business of film.  Part of Cass Business School, the academy is based just fifteen minutes from Soho, the heart of the British film industry. The Film Business Academy aims to bring the creative energy of the international film industry together with global business expertise, with idea of creating partnerships that will help power the film business into the future.

Do you think you could inspire the public to take action on climate change?

If so, we want you to make a short film that encourages us to do just that.

If you've got a video camera - even a mobile phone - and lots of great ideas, you could have your piece broadcast exclusively on Sky, reaching one in three homes across the UK. Want to know more? Of course you do!

Go to http://www.skycast.com/greenshoots

"The fact that the UKFC is supporting off-line events, specifically film festivals, is good news for  cinema lovers on this dull, damp island." Eliot Grove,
Raindance

The UK Film Council have unveiled new additional funding plans from now until 2010, including a £1.5m annual festivals fund, and further money for archive, digitisations, online promotion and partnerships. "The UK Film Council's recognition that film festivals need significant support is very welcome", Leeds International Film Fest director Chris Fell told Netribution. "I hope that the new fund prioritises and fully supports the outstanding work of regional film festivals across the country as substantial and sustained support from the UK Film Council will help them deliver unprecedented access for countrywide audiences to the real world of cinema" Chris said. Time will tell if the new funds will support projects outside of the big players and regions, or if it will be more high level funding for London and Edinburgh Festivals

"I hope that the new fund prioritises and fully supports the outstanding work of regional film festivals across the country"
Chris Fell, Leeds Int. Film FestivalWhile the marketing of online films will be supported with up to £2m, it appears there's no money specifically for web or software projects that support, develop and promote filmmakers, as Spain and some Scandinavian countries have begun to offer (although given that the consultation document 'A Digital Future' failed to mention the word Internet once, this is small surpise).

Further information is also awaited guiding principles the Digital Film Archive Fund will use in administering money to archives. If it is used to put archive material freely online in a platform-neutral and usable format (Creative Archive or Creative Commons), then the UK could at least catch up with the US where projects such as Archive.org have released some fantastic treasures into the public domain. 

The new funds are:

• UK Film Festivals Fund  - £1.5 million per year – to create a thriving film festival scene in the UK giving the public better access to the rich world of cinema in all its diversity;
• UK Digital Film Archives Fund - £1 million per year – to open up access to the nation’s unparalleled film heritage across the UK;
• Partnership Challenge Fund - £1 million per year – bringing new funding partnerships together to widen public participation in film, initially with the following priorities:

- media literacy and film education;
- cinema capital funding;
- cinema access and inclusion initiatives;
- London 2012 Olympic related film initiatives;

• Digitisation and Marketing Fund – £2 million per year - building on our existing Prints and Advertising Fund with additional funding focusing on wider theatrical and online distribution of British and specialised film;
• Marketing Testing Fund - £1 million per year from the existing Premiere Fund will be used to market test British films.  Any British film will be able to apply for funding not just those supported by the Premiere Fund.

Paul Gilbert recently posted to Shooting People about a new petition on the website of YouTube vlogger 'No 10 Downing Street'...

"Does everyone know about this? There is a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website already up and running which aims to:

‘Stop the Chancellor using Lottery money to plug the funding gap in the 2012 Olympics. If this goes ahead at least £900m will go from Big lottery, Sport England, Arts Council and Heritage Lottery much of this money would fund projects within the local voluntary and community sector. Services to disadvantaged people will be directly affected by the loss of this funding, people who will have no opportunity to benefit from the Olympics directly but rely on local services provided by the voluntary sector.’

This is opposing the reallocation of resources to the Olympics of which the 35% reduction of grants for the arts is a part. To submit your name to this petition click on petitions.pm.gov.uk/lotteryolympics/

British film-makers are unable to decide whether to raise a toast to Gordon Brown or bay for his blood. The Chancellor has closed a tax loophole, potentially costing the industry millions of pounds, while introducing a new tax credit which will give an as yet unknown amount back to film-makers.

Producers, investors and accountants have been hit by a spate of changes to the tax system, the most jarring of which was the abolition last month of "sideways loss relief" - a tax allowance that had formed the backbone of a recent boom in British film.

Some producers making films not intended for the cinema, such as TV movies and straight-to-DVD productions may get a boost from Chancellor Gordon Brown's budget, according to Scott Sinclair of IFAonline.

He points out on the IAFonline website, that under current rules set out in the Finance Act (FA) 2006, firms making films for cinema and TV are affected by their own tax agendas; each film is treated as a separate trade taking into account costs and income from the film. After that, Schedule 5 provides extra tax relief to firms making British cinema movies.

New Ruling Caps Amount Raised Under EIS

U.K. film producers were hit with a second tax clampdown in as many weeks on budget day as the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown delivered his annual budget speech. While Brown told a packed House of Commons that he wants to put the creative industries at the heart of fiscal policymaking, the devil was in the details for the movie industry. The issued policy documents contain a new ruling that puts a cap on the amount of money producers can raise under Enterprise Investment Schemes at £2 million ($3.9 million) a year. The previous EIS limit was £8 million ($15.7 million) a year.

Sale and Leaseback Deals Spared Noose

More than 90 Movies Could be Saved

The British film industry breathed a collective huge sigh of relief this week when, on Wednesday, the U.K. government excluded film sale-and-leaseback deals from its latest tax clampdown, announced last Friday. Film industry leaders have been lobbying furiously for this U-turn since Friday, when the government announced a sudden change in tax rules with immediate effect.

The change was meant to shut down tax-avoidance schemes across a wide range of industries, but a side effect was an immediate halt to sale-and-leaseback deals on more than 90 British films completed in the second half of 2006, including "Casino Royale," "Fred Claus," "Hannibal Rising" and "The Queen." U.S. studio movies and many Brit indie pics were affected.