September marks the new academic year and a fresh start for our new and continuing students. We were delighted to host welcome drinks with students and staff this month, meeting lots of new faces and see student work start to take shape.
Over the last month we’ve also seen festival successes with former Filmmaking student Robin Moran taking Autobiography (Dir: Makbul Mubarak, DoP: Wojciech Staron), the film he co-produced to Venice Film Festival and London Film Festival, picking up the Fipresci Prize in the process.
It was great to hear from Daneeta Jackson, who made her most recent film, Homeland / Wetland with her husband and collaborator, Patrick Jackson. Patrick and Daneeta both studied at LFS in 2000 – 2002 and together have collaborated on a whole series of documentaries as well as founding ElekTrik Zoo Films, Inc. Homeland / Wetland lays out the past 100 years of man vs. nature in Louisiana and extrapolate into the future both grim and heroic possibilities. Watch the film here.
Congratulations to LFS MA Filmmaking alumna and PhD grad, Clara Kraft for her film Bawa’s Garden. Not only will the film be screened at Arquitecturas Film Festival, Porto, it will also be part of ADFF Architecture & Design Film Festival in New York City and it will see its UK premier at Raindance at the end of October. The documentary was shot across Sri Lanka as the film follows protagonist scouring the island for the work of renowned Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa. Get tickets for the premiere of Bawa’s Garden at Raindance here.
LFS will see another alumni appearance at Raindance this year with alumnus, Christos Massalas, former Filmmaking student screening his debut feature film BROADWAY (DoP: Konstantinos Koukoulios, in its UK premiere this November, having been nominated for the Discovery Award and Best Screenplay at Raindance. The screening and following Q&A at the Rio Cinema on 3rd November are open to all and tickets can be found here. The film premiered at the International Festival Rotterdam IFFR in January 2022 and since then has been travelling to festivals worldwide, receiving prizes, including BEST FILM by the Union of Italian Film Critics. BROADWAY is Christos’s debut feature, and was developed through the Sundance Lab and Atelier Cinéfondation, Cannes.
This month we also saw that Wood and Water (dir: Jonas Bak, DoP: Alex Grigoras) received a superb review in The Guardian. Shot by former student, Alexandru Grigoras, the film was released this month on MUBI and it’s great to know such a brilliantly shot film will be available to such a wide audience.
It was a real pleasure to see that our neighbours, The Garden Cinema have been celebrating a season of Mike Leigh in September that is taking place until the end of October. The curated retrospective has been presented in two parts, and explores the themes of his work as they have developed over the course of his career. Screenings are followed by an in-depth discussion about their themes and content. Mike Leigh himself will be joined by his friend and collaborator Gary Yershon. Part 2 of the season runs from 19th – 30th October and features the films: Meantime, Naked, Career Girls, Topsy-Turvy, Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Turner and Peterloo. Visit The Garden Cinema for more information Mike Leigh in Conversation - The Garden Cinema
We love hearing from out alumni, please do keep sharing your work and stories with us.
Graduation film screenings: September 2022 highlights
Graduation films have been screening all over the world in September – check out the screenings below.
We are delighted that two LFS grad films Zong and the darkly humorous People’s Pond have their world premieres at the Academy Awards®, BAFTAs and BIFA qualifier: Encounters Short Film Festival (Bristol, UK). Zong (Writer-Dir: Hope Robinson, DoP: Suzzette Ortiz Centeno) and People's Pond (Writer-Dir: Chiahui Liao, DoP-Editor-Prod: Shuaizhi Li)
Dark comedy On Your Behalf festival run is snowballing with multiple screenings across the pond - at respected Calgary International Film Festival, Cinequest Sudbury in Ontario, and Edmonton Film Festival (all in Canada). In the USA at the Indie Shorts Awards – New York, picking up best production design and best Actress, then hopping back to France Rennes Int Fantastic SFF [Dir: Ana Garcia Rico, DoP: Sam Travis].
Blue Note received a hometown screening at Helsinki International FF, and then again at Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2022 (Sweden) along with Nordic film The Viewing Room. [Blue Note (Dir: Pavel Andonov, DoP Ebba Hult) and The Viewing Room (Dir: Love von Hauswolff, DoP: Simon Averin]
Youth drama Unders, played in the Next-Gen section at Nashville Film Festival 2022 (USA) [Writer-DoP: Owen Laird]
Sibling drama Incense and Cigarettes will be part of Prague International Indie Film Festival 2022 (Czech Republic) and Tokyo Shorts 2022 [Dir: Lingge Dong, DoP: Hangshuo Zhang]. After some great screenings black comedy Sucking Diesel flies to the Mediterranean screening at Malta FF, nominated for Best Sound Design. [Dir: Sam Mcgrath, DoP: Aidan Gault]
Girls premiered at 6th 86358 Short Film Festival (China). [Writer-Dir: Qiwen Zhang]
The film Third Solar Term continues to screen at 5th Cut to: Gent 2022 and 9th Taiwan International Queer Film Festival 2022 [Writer-Dir-Editor: Zhanfei Song, DoP: Tong Liu,]
After a successful festival fun, A Firecracker Story was accepted at 19th International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Countries Pacific Meridian in Vladivostok (Russia). [Writer-Dir: Zhizi Hao, DoP: Guyuan Ma]
Photo Credits (top to bottom)
Still from Homeland / Wetland (Dir and DoP: Daneeta Jackson / Patrick Jackson)
Still from Broadway (Dir: Chrisos Massalas, DoP: Konstantinos Koukoulios)
Film poster of Wood and Water (Dir: Jonas Bak, DoP: Alex Grigoras)
Mike Leigh season at The Garden Cinema
Still from Unders (Dir: Bert Dijkstra, DoP: Owen Laird)
Image from Girls (Writer-Dir: Qiwen Zhang)