The Next Big Thing

The seven short films chosen by art and design collective Tomato from this years’ graduates show that in these dark economic times, filmmakers seem to be satisfying the public appetite for a little escapism.



Organised by Film Friends Forever, the selection of seven films contained elements of magic and surrealism, a mixture of quirkiness and poignancy.

Royal College of Art graduate Rafael Sommerhalder’s animation piece Wolves, set the tone for the evening - a tale of two lonely commuters on the tube becoming part of a lupine-esque mating ritual. The simplicity of the sparse black and white animation enhanced the humour as well as the painful awkwardness of the character’s interactions.

What followed was the sole exception to an otherwise animation dominated bill - London College of Communication’s Luke White's Tide is a dreamlike story of a father sending his son down a small tunnel, equipped with a camera to bring back footage from a place very different from the bleak, barren landscape they inhabit. Inter-spliced with 16-mm projections, its ominous, dramatic atosphere was reminiscent of sequences from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Helen Piercy of the National Film and Television School (NFTS) presented Goodbye Mr Pink, a mixture of live action and stop-motion animation in which two children, on discovering their pet rabbit has died, perform an amateur autopsy and imagine the afterlife in store for the eponymous Mr Pink. With elements of twee and the sinister combined, this film had a distinct Roald Dahl feel.

Another NFTS graduate, Li Marhaban’s film End of the Line is a stunningly crafted mixed media animation of a woman navigating a city, run down by hours of work and commuting. Beautifully evocative, End of the Line was tipped by Tomato as the pick of the bunch, followed by Seong Jun Lee of the RCA’s experimental animation Cityscape, which conjures up scenes of London through flowing layers of spidery line drawings.

The evening closed with two funnies. Yellow Belly Up, from Philip Bacon, also of the NFTS, depicted an assortment of people wearing animal suits jumping of a cliff, meticulously recorded by a bespectacled, bird-suited, jellybean-eating overseer. Comparisons can be drawn with the black humour implicit in the work of young animator David Firth, creator of Salad Fingers.

Lastly, David Lopez Retamero, again from the RCA, showed us Sam’s Hotdog’s . Hot-dog vendor Sam introduces us to his life, his girlfriends and his vicious pet bear. As well as sublime animation, the comic dialogue set thsi film apart from the other, less talky pieces and ensured it drew the biggest laughs and audience response of the night.


The animation and cinematography of the films is uniformly beautiful and highly impressive, but what is interesting is the total absence of grit or realism. While, as a society we are in need of a good cheering up, the occasional change of tone wouldn’t have gone amiss to avoid the tone becoming mono. None the less, independently, each piece is impressive and the creators are definitely ones to watch.

www.tomato.co.uk
www.filmfriendsforever.com

Birds Eye View

Birds Eye View Film Festival

Kicking off this Thursday March 5th.

 

Words by Imogen Eveson

 

Whether you're male or female, feminist or otherwise, it would difficult for anybody to feel indifferent about the stark figure that only 7% of directors are women.

"The statistics are so shocking! 20% would be bad, but seven?!" exclaims Rachel Millward, founder of Birds Eye View, the world's first film festival that supports and celebrates women filmmakers.


Making micro-budget short films with Pinny Grylls led Rachel to the discovery of the galling statistic. "We were very aware of the lack of role models for us - it was really hard at the time to name more than one or 2 female directors. We wanted to create a platform for our peers - to encourage and promote. So we began BEV as a short film event at the end of 2002, then I pushed it forward into a festival for 2005."


Now in its fifth year, Birds Eye View is about to kick off again, with a week's worth of cinematic festivities taking place from the 5th - 13th March between the BFI, ICA and other London venues. The bill encompasses everything from feature length documentaries ("American Teen is a fantastic doc. It's proper laughing-crying entertaining - and heart-wrenching at the same time") to French comedy ("Grown Ups is a gorgeous feature - like reading a brilliant novel - characters you get to love...").With shorts coming in all shapes and sizes, from animation, documentary and drama by both UK and international directors. 
Innovation strand hosts high calibre films from the realms of music and fashion, providing a glimpse into the world of digital advertising. With journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer at the helm, Music Loves Video features the work of rising star Kinga Burza, Ali Taylor and Shelly Love.


Fashion Loves Film director Kathryn Ferguson has cherry-picked some fine sartorial flicks from Katerina Jebb for Givenchy, Sarah Chatfield for YSL, Toyin for Replay and Nick Knight's first assistant, Ruth Hogben.


Screen Seductresses: Vamps, Vixens & Femmes Fatales, is an intriguing event featuring Louise Brooks, Theda Bara, Greta Garbo and Alla Nazimova as the vampish protagonists of six silent films screened with specially commissioned live music from cutting edge female artists, such as Bishi. "I always love the live music - silent film stuff," enthuses Rachel. "Bishi is a phenomenal performer - she seriously kicks ass - I can't wait to see what she does with the film Salome. I imagine it will be hot hot hot."


A festival's focus is remarkable women from developing countries. "We have some amazing women filmmakers visiting for Q&As with their film screenings - from India (Goddesses, part of the Connecting Voices event) and Nigeria (giving us a guided tour of Nollywood), and from Afghanistan too. It's such a special opportunity to learn from women who are cutting it in film in very, very different situations from ours.."


Each year a theme is flagged up and debated at the festival and this time round the hot topic is sex on screen. Director Carine Adler, award-winning porn director Petra Joy, former Erotic Review editor Rowan Pelling, Coco de Mer's Sam Roddick and Mike Figgis will all be on hand for some steamy discussion as to how sex is portrayed in film when a woman takes control.


"I guess the main differences between men and women when approaching sex in film correlate to the differences between men and women when approaching sex in the bedroom," Rachel says. "You only have to watch a few Hollywood sex scenes to figure it's full of magic women who come on thrusting-cue and has very little to do with the clitoris. Watch a film like 'In the Cut' (Jane Campion directed and crucially written by a woman), and you find yourself shocked to see Mark Ruffalo go down on Meg Ryan. I'm no expert, but I don't think that's so unusual in real life, is it?!"

 

With such a scope and wealth of ideas, it's no surprise that Birds Eye has garnered the support of some famous faces; counting Joanna Lumley, Martha Fiennes and Juliet Stevenson as patrons. The late Anthony Minghella stated in 2005 how 'alarming and odd' it was that 'film is currently the preserve largely of white men.'


If the passionate team behind Birds Eye View have anything to do with it, this is changing. The festival will continue to inspire ideas and confidence in a new generation of female filmmakers and artists, or at the very least, make for a highly enjoyable few days (and nights, lest you forget Friday 13th's closing night party...)

Check out some Birds Eye View on jotta here

And the ful festival programme at www.birds-eye-view.co.uk.