Tomorrow marks the fourth final of the One Shot Movie Competition, hosted in the iconic Prince Charles Cinema. Didn’t have plans for Thursday? Well, that’s now settled. No worries – it’s just what we do.
The festival rules? Simple: “‘Make a live action film using one shot, this means no cuts whatsoever.”
With no genre specifications, film makers are invited to sling on their creative caps to produce either a short film of fifteen minutes or less, or a feature film with a seventy minute minimum duration.
Modern cinema loves long shots – the trend has been fully embraced by the likes of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrit in the 2014 satirical drama Birdman for one, but it’s hardly something just about anyone can pull off. Organisers Daniel Birt, Keir Menzies and Daniel Palmer bring their extensive expertise to a truly unique competition showcasing the few that do. “It’s dynamic, occasionally spectacular, even ironic, but above all represents a great challenge for film makers.”
The screenings of this year’s ten shortlisted films begin at 9pm, with British spoken word poet and hip-hop artist Scroobius Pip leading the night as Master of Ceremonies.
“This year film makers really pushed the boundaries of what is possible within the limitations of one shot, so much so that we were blown away by the scale, imagination and sheer chutzpah of many of the entries,” say the organisers… Which, to be honest, sounds like a pretty good reason to go.
Last years winning film ‘Tolerance’ undercut leading meta-narratives to convey a twisted humorous short – its producers Aiden Moran and Martin Noble have been invited back as judges for this years competition. Joining them on the One Shot Competition panel of judges is Telegraph film writer and critic Patrick Smith, screenwriter and co-founder of Underwire Festival, Gabriella Apicella, and Pablo Kauffman Gonzalez, director of photography for acclaimed shorts and feature films.
The top ten shortlisted films for the 2015 One Shot Movie Competition are:
‘PLAYBACK’ (Nathan Crooker, USA)
‘He and She’ (Marco Gadge, Germany)
‘Free Flow’ (Jeroen Sebrechts, Hungary)
‘Rearranged’ (Ewa Góorzna, Finland)
‘This is How’ (Matt Simmonds, UK)
‘Norte’ (Javier Garcia, Spain)
‘I’m Sorry to Tell You’ (Ben Price, UK)
‘The Unspoken’ (Sumana Barman, India)
‘Afterlife’ (Evtim Yankov, Elizabeth Yordanova, Bulgaria)
‘Coming To’ (Lindsey Haun, USA)
Us here at Bar Guys might be showing something there too… This is obviously under a very opaque veil of secrecy. Obviously.
Tickets for the competition screening are available from the One Shot Movie Competition website. You’re probably best off sorting that out just about now.
Words by Erlend J Evans
Featured image is a still from Birdman.