As our next Filmed Up night is upon us, we thought it was time to reflect on what we’ve shown so far and give you a little insight into what you’ve missed. Plus you can check out some of the films we have screened that are available online (on the right hand side)
In the beginning…
Filmed Up started as a conversation and a meeting of minds. We wanted to showcase the talent and creativity of North West filmmakers, offer an informal place for networking and involve our audience in programming. Local filmmakers wanted more of their films shown at Cornerhouse and audience members were interested in learning more about and participating in programming. So we recruited a panel of audience members who were interested in programming, willing to give their time to watch films and debate them, then we put a call out for films from across the North West. And voila! Filmed Up was born. We have now had three film nights and screened 29 short films.
We felt it was important to see what is made by our regional filmmakers across genre and years and it seems to have worked so far. The oldest film we have screened was from 1980, up to a film whose director finished the colour grading a day before our submission deadline! We’ve had an animation about poo, experimental silent films, gory horror, touching stories, hard hitting dramas and more…all ranging from 90 second to 26 minutes.
Winners of the audience votes so far…
Kiss by Mat Johns (March 2012 ); Racing Time by Adele Myers and Ra Page (June 2012); No Promises by Steven Hutchinson and George’s Day by David Whitney (joint winners September 2012).
Life after Filmed Up
A few of the films we’ve shown landed on our screens having done the festival circuits whilst others started their journey here and have already gathered a few awards along the way:
- Our first audience award winner Kiss went on to win the Best Director Award at Newport IFF last month
- Photoshopping, which was shown at our first screening, has since been on at the Greater Manchester Film Festival, The Foyle Film Festival in Northern Island and also won Best Comedy at the Aesthetica Film Festival
- Racing Time was selected for Zebra poetry Film Festival in Berlin, Oslo Poetry Film Festival, Kendal Mountain Film Festival and Underwire Festival in Brixton with more in the pipeline.
We’re also brokering a collaboration between Filmed Up filmmakers and composers at RNCM so we’re looking forward to the results!
What needs improving…
It’s kind of up to you to tell us, which is why we always ask for feedback on the night. But if you have any thoughts, please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment below. We have already introduced changes to the format based on what you told us and the panel’s feedback; for instance we now ask all the filmmakers to introduce their films so that the audience know who to go and talk to after the event. Personally one area we feel we need to work on is reaching more filmmakers across the North West region so we’re going to work hard on this next quarter. Of course if you want to help us spread the word, feel free to do so!
If you want to get a feel for what the night is, have a look at Mancunian Matter’s Review and a lovely recommendation from Seveer.
Filmed Up happens every 3 months and we accept submissions all year round.