|
 Over the years I've been lucky enough to visit most of the main film festivals in the UK. By far my favourite experience was the Hull Short Film Festival, back in 2003, where I saw some truely mind-expanding films from Oscar-winning master Virgil Widrich, participated in some lively debates and panels, ate great food at the unique Hitchcocks restaurant (the first person to book for each night can decide which country's cuisine the whole restaurant will eat that evening) and danced alongside Virgil at one of the infamous Hutt Street parties.
So when Laurence Boyce, DVD reviewer for Netribtion and one of the most passionate and committed people about short films in the UK (he watches several thousand a year) was made director, we were very excited here and Netribution is delighted to be a partner of the festival. With the vast majority of films shown online being short form, the medium will only continue to grow and develop, with festivals like Hull more important than ever.
 Kicking of last night (15th April), treats include the presence of the UK's hottest short director - Simon Ellis - in attendence for a BAFTA masterclass and trawl through some of his favourite shorts. Ellis made his first short, Thicker than Water, for a fiver, and last year saw his short film Soft (pictured) pick up 30 awards at pretty much all of the top film festivals . It only missed out on an Oscar nomination after a middle-of the night screening on Channel 4 made it ineligable for the awards.
Internationally acclaimed 16mm short filmmaker Ben Rivers will be presenting a retrospective of his work, and three programmes of India shorts will showcase some of the riches of talent coming from the world's most productive filmmaking country. Further screenings from the brilliant Slack Video, Creative Partnerships, Propeller TV, and the London Short Film Festival are joined with panels from Film and Festivals magazine and Netribution (yay), where we will run a follow-up to the Never Mind the Celluloid event from Leeds Film Festival 2004 - which has even made it to the pages of Wikipedia! Other events include four competitions - Hull, Yorkshire, UK and International - and a full screening of this years BAFTA nominated and winning shorts and animations. Yorkshire writer-director Sue Everett and producer Rob Speranza lead an in-depth masterclass, Anatomy of a Short Film, on making shorts from start to finish, while filmmaking collective EXP24 run a workshop on making shorts without a camera.
 It sounds great, and I strongly recommend you download their brochure and get yourself over to Hull. You can also see some trailers and previews at ITV's website .
 |
Show/Hide comment form
