Alumni Highlights
March was a busy month for our alumni with a number of successes and achievements across the board. MA Screenwriting graduate Taiyo Yoshida won the Best Film Script (19 and Over) for Get in the Groove in the Film The House Competition.
Huge congratulations to Taiyo for winning in a competition that does important work to educate Parliamentarians about the importance of the creative industries to the British economy and the importance of protecting intellectual property rights among creators.
March saw the 2022 Academy Awards and all at London Film School are immensely proud of Filmmaking alumna Paula Huidobro being part of the team behind Best Picture winner, CODA as Cinematographer. We’re delighted to see her work recognised. Paula received an Emmy Nomination in 2018 for her work on cocreator/star Bill Hader’s dark hitman comedy Barry (HBO) and in the same year made the list of Variety 10 Cinematographers to watch. She was asked to join the AMPAS, is a member of the ICG and the Mexican Society of Cinematographers.
Special acknowledgement and congratulations to Golnaz Jamsheed, MAF Filmmaking alumna who shot her short film Pregnant, during particularly tough circumstances in Tehran, Iran, during the pandemic. Golnaz managed a great deal of the production herself, as so many of her team were ill or in quarantine including working as production manager, production designer, costume designer and script supervisor. We’re looking forward to seeing Pregnant on the festival circuit worldwide.
It has been fantastic to see LFS alumni join forces and work together on projects beyond their time at LFS, and so the success of the Unearthed Narratives, a series of five short films broadcast on Sky Arts, has been especially brilliant. The Unearthed Narrative Series is available to watch via NOW TV.
The series has been produced by DBK Studios, founded by one LFS graduate Koby Adom. DBK Studios is focused on giving a platform to stories from under-represented British creatives. Sky Studios and DBK Studios partnered on a five-part short film series to spotlight the UK’s emerging black and diverse talent.
One of the five shorts, TEJU’S TALE, is written and directed by another graduate, Teniola King. MAF alumna Nathalie Pitters was the cinematographer on Teniola’s film and also worked on another in the series, The Butterfly Affect. Aaron Reid, another MAF garduate was the cinematographer on Fields with LFS senior lecturer, Angelina Shortt editing two films in series, TEJU’S TALE and Fields. Many congratulations to everyone involved!
LFS Graduate Film Highlights
The Underwire Film Festival was a huge success for LFS films with three screened, including, WE ALL JUST WANT TO BE MAD, after a room and Vagina Musical. Underwire celebrates female filmmaking talent across the crafts was founded with the aim to change the face of the industry from the inside out.
- WE ALL JUST WANT TO BE MAD (Dir: Flora Tennant, Producers: Naomi Pacifique and Rafael Manuel, DoP: Xenia Patricia, Prod Design: Davide Valsecchi)
- after a room (Dir-Writer-Editor: Naomi Pacifique, Sound Design: Pablo Carreras, Producer: Rafael Manuel)
- Vagina Musical (Dir: Abigail Quinlan, Producer-Editor: Fergus Neville, DoP: Nizah Elia)
- after a room is also screening at the Oscar qualifier Go Shorts Film Festival, a premier film festival for emerging filmmakers. after a room is one of 22 films selected in Nijmegan Go Shorts.
- A Firecracker Story, was screened at Fribourg International Film Festival, a festival which aims to promote the understanding between cultures through films. A Firecracker Story was screened in the international short film category. (Dir: Zhizi Hao; Producer: Liang, Naixin; DoP: Ma, Guyuan; Prod. Design: Ding, Yiling; Editor: Ding, Xiao; Art Director: Li, Cheng.)
- More Grad films are seeing festival success with Wicked Queer, Boston's LGBTQ+ Film Festival (screening now), and at the Maryland Film Festival, (from 27th April) showing The Third Solar Term, created by a team of LFS MAF graduates, (Dir-Writer-Editor: Zhanfei Song, Prod: Naixin Liang, DoP: Tong Liu).
Congratulations to all!
If you have any alumni news you would like to share, please send details to Holly at h.blake@lfs.org.uk
Photo Credits (top to bottom)
Image from Film The House
Still from Pregnant by Golnaz Jamsheed
Still from TEJU’S TALE by Teniola King
Still from after a room by Naomi Pacifique, DoP: Xenia Patricia
Still from The Third Solar Term by Zhanfei Song, DoP: Long Tiu