As far as we're concerned, Saturday was DepicT! day. After a bit of last minute running around on our part (happens every year!), the DepicT! Showcase was absolutely fantastic. Once again it was a sold-out event, and the eleven shortlisted films went down a treat. As one audience member pointed out, there's something about seeing them on the big screen that completely changes them from what you've seen on the website, especially since the sound design was particularly strong in all the films this year. Tinny laptop speakers and grubby screens don't really do them justice!
After the premiere of the DepicT! films, Shooting People's main man James Mullighan helmed a brief Q+A with the filmmakers who were able to make it to the festival. This was followed by a panel with a variety of industry figures on the ultra-short format and what can be done with it. Hazel Grian, Matt Golding, Tor Kristoffersen, Nicholas Chee and Jeremy Routledge discussed virals, commercials, Alternate Reality Games, big screens and little screens, long films and short films... We hope to get a podcast of these two discussions online soon! In the meantime, you can download programme notes here (pdf, 550k).
Later that evening, we gathered to celebrate the top films of the whole Encounters Short Film Festival, which is where the three winners of DepicT! were announced. Jurors David Sproxton and Nicholas Chee presented the main DepicT! '09 Award of £2000 to Daniel Faigle for his film A TV-Movie, which they said was "effective in its humour and attention to detail". Juror Amaka Ugwunkwo from the British Council and Tim Hunter from BAFTA announced the winner of the new DepicT! British Special Mention Award, which went to Sam Firth for her film ID which the jury found to be "a personal and moving way of telling a story". Last but not least, James Mullighan presented the Shooting People DepicT! Audience Award to the winner as chosen by you, Last Minute by Pedro Suárez.
Big congratulations to those three, as well as to all the DepicT! shortlisted filmmakers. The judges agreed that this was an extremely strong batch of films, and their deliberation was lively indeed.
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