06-11-22 / FIREWORKS

Every year on November 5th and/or New Year’s Eve I reconsider a short idea I had mega-years ago concerning fireworks. This year I decided to start the ball rolling before it atrophied completely. Having only just returned from a trip to France via London two days before, I made the decision to drag my arse back down to Bigtown to see what I could film. All manner of strategising ensued via a combo of google maps, topographical maps, meteorological data, and conflicting reports of certain events being cancelled or not.

I picked Parliament Hill in the north as my vantage point, where I’d be able to see random displays to the south over the London skyline and also catch the Alexandra Palace display to the north. Naturally, the weather ruined pretty much everything with a fine, constant drizzle guaranteeing fuzzy visibility in all directions. I might be able to pull something from the footage I shot earlier in the evening but it will mean a shitbox of trickery, which is precisely what I wanted to avoid.

The Alexandra Palace fireworks weren’t visible from Parliament Hill in the end, and the unexpected wealth of displays to the south meant that Primrose Hill would have been the better shooting location. As it stands, I might have to return on New Year’s Eve to try and bag the big display over the Thames, providing it isn’t raining/snowing/hailing. Despite all the effort I still can’t help wondering if I’ll actually make the film. Or whether it’s actually worth making.

29-09-22 / LAUGH OR LOSE YOUR SHIT COMPLETELY

The last few days have been the sort to choose maniacal laughter over climbing a water tower. I’ve no idea what’s up with the cosmos but it must have fallen from the wrong side of bed and landed on a piece of Lego.

It’s the time of year I’d usually be at Encounters Film Festival in Bristol. Ostrich Theory premiered there in 2020 but, like every other festival in 2020 (and most of 2021) it was a pandemic edition, meaning strictly online. In 2022 they are now giving a selection of shorts from those previous two years their rightful moment in a cinema. Huzzah!

More than any other film I’ve made, this one was crafted specifically for theatrical exhibition. With one exception, I missed the opportunity to experience it with an audience. Now that its festival run is over, I was well up for this magical last chance to see it in a cinema and hear the 5.1 audio for the first (!) time. I went through every stage of trying not to lose my shit in order to make it to Bristol. Alas, old man lady luck had other ideas.

Rail strikes cancelled all Saturday trains leaving Bristol, meaning my return journey. As consolation I was permitted to use the same ticket for travel on Friday or Sunday; a rare gesture of flexibility for the UK’s bend-over-and-brace-yourself excuse for a train service.

Then I arrived at Nottingham station for the 10:07 departure to Bristol and it was... cancelled. Due to ‘a shortage of drivers’. Duly informed that I could use my ticket to take the next train at 11:07, I waited the hour for that one to also evaporate. A fatality on the line. The third in two weeks, apparently. There was no available information on when the line might reopen, someone was dead, and a driver was scarred for life. Well that did it for me. I turned tail and drifted back home like a dazed ghost, trying to keep perspective. I’m alive. Relax.

Then my mum has an accident and was taken to hospital. Then my sister became trapped in Florida by hurricane Ian (“Ian” ffs), without power and unable to go outside. When hurricane Simon comes-a-blowing I hope it sweeps right through Westminster and takes our Prime Arseblister’s government to a distant island where they have nothing left to destroy but each other.

All images are tableaux from Ostrich Theory after being put through the AI mincer to better illustrate my current mood about the country I live in and the jokers who run it. 

02-07-22 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ IN VIMEO’S ‘BEST OF STAFF PICKS’ & LONGLISTED FOR ‘BEST OF THE YEAR’

Those lovely boggers at Vimeo have gone and selected Ostrich Theory for their Best Of Staff Picks channel and also longlisted it for Best Of The Year.

07-06-22 / FIRST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL VISIT SINCE 2019 (JUST ABOUT)

After getting tangled in the cancelled flights debacle that continues to plague the UK, I gratefully managed to visit Hamburg International Short Film Festival, my annual regular since Ye Olde 2002. This was their first live edition since the pandemic and I was so joyed to be reacquainted with it that I didn’t even see any films. Well, that's to say I watched two special programmes dedicated to restoration/archiving but didn't catch any competition programmes. Crazy considering they are my fuel, but it was very much about the people for me this time. I enjoyed the Schnapps wardrobe more than once - an unassuming cupboard on wheels containing a snug table for two with a hatch cut into the rear where someone serves you with free shots and chat. The pic below was taken at dawn so the wardrobe is closed for orders.

What I loved less was the fiasco getting out of the UK. To be fair, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared to proper shit that’s happening in the world, which gave me pause where I once would have been fuming. While the UK's travel infrastructure appears to be collapsing under the weight of its desperate grab to catch up post-covid, I entered Heathrow and looked at the departures board to see my Eurowings flight was cancelled. Being subsequently directed from one queue to another while disgruntled passengers became emotional, it took about an hour to be issued a replacement flight for the following morning, plus a hotel room in some urban desert. I'd heard a week of daily horror stories on UK radio about flight cancellations and, seeing the crying teenage athlete and her incandescent mother opposite me ("My daughter has trials for the German national team!"), I knew it could always be worse. I'd merely lose one precious day in Hamburg but at least I'd get there.

Not so fast though. A bus from the hotel back to Heathrow at 6am the next day and my newly issued document wouldn’t scan me through the barrier. I was informed that it wasn’t a recognised code and actually not even a boarding pass, which I would now have to go and get from check-in. In short, I wasn’t checked in and had not been told this when I was issued the new flight (nice one Eurowings). The upshot of this was that my new boarding pass was a ‘standby’ and I could only board the plane IF someone failed to turn up. Unlikely considering the flight was oversubscribed with the previous day’s cancelled passengers, but I chanced my arm and made sure I was at the front of the ‘standby’ queue to watch the flight slowly fill up. For a moment it looked like all of us standbyers were going to get on, until a crowd of lucky-bastard latecomers dashed to the gate and dashed my dreams. Then a PLOT TWIST as an unfortunate German girl wasn’t allowed to board because she hadn’t checked in properly so they gave me her place and, by the skin of my teeth, I was away.

Being in Hamburg was nothing short of magical and I really needed to be in a country where stuff just works. Naturally, everything turned instantly brown again in the UK. Another London underground strike meant apocalyptic bus scenes where everyone was packed in to illegal levels but nobody would get off. You can imagine how popular I was with a case and backpack. The driver had a meltdown, screaming his merry head off at still-boarding passengers because he risked losing his licence, switching off the engine and refusing to move. Precisely while all this was happening my phone informed me that our dipshit PM survived his vote of no confidence and is now free to go on screwing up the country. Four hours after landing I could finally chuck my feet up and shout at the patchy Obi Wan Kenobi on my mate’s telly. It isn’t so hard to keep a sensible perspective on these relatively trivial woes during times of actual crises that I’m fortunate not to experience, but boy is the arse falling out of our infrastructure.

04-05-22 / FRAUD AT FILMFREEWAY - THE PLOT THICKENS

Following on from my previous post about fake festivals on FilmFreeway, a newsletter just went out from Romainia’s Astra Film Festival concerning another angle of fraud on the platform. You can see a detailed article here but key extracts from the newsletter are:

Recently three festivals in Romania were affected by unauthorized usage of their festival identity. Fake festival accounts were created on FilmFreeway submission platform without the consent of the organizers and without even being aware that they had an open call there. These fake festival accounts seem to be created for monetary income and for data collection.

FilmFreeway does not have a clear-cut policy for checking the identity of the persons who create the festival accounts. There are more and more cases when they use existing festival identity, announce the call for submission, and take the income, harming not only the reputation of the festivals but they are misleading thousands of aspirant filmmakers who apply on these fake festival accounts. And they illegally receive the income of submissions.

Film submitters should double-check a festival’s official website where exactly they have to submit their film, and if the festival has an official account on FilmFreeway or other submission platforms.

- Astra Film Festival Team

A couple of times in the past few years I have been notified of fake listings for known festivals and I was fortunate enough to be refunded. How many aren’t so lucky? The bottom line here is that FilmFreeway need to get their act together sharpish before a better-policed alternative steps in. Let’s hope that festival fraud is finally too conspicuous to flourish unchecked.

08-04-22 / ONLINE RELEASE & VIMEO STAFF PICK FOR ‘OSTRICH THEORY’

Ostrich Theory is now available to view online and I’m loving the excellent folk at Vimeo for gracing it with a Staff Pick.

01-04-22 / ‘SOFT’ AT ‘THIS IS SHORT’

The excellent annual short film portal This Is Short, an initiative by four REAL festivals - Oberhausen (Germany), GoShort (Netherlands), Short Waves (Poland) and Vienna Shorts (Austria), starts today. You get three whole months to fill your boots with properly curated programmes of excellent shorts like, ahem, Soft, which features in the programme Two Short Films About Shame from tomorrow. Click the image below to buy a pass for the whole shebang for €20 (or an Industry Pass for €25).

15-03-22 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT REGENSBURG SHORT FILM WEEK

Because that lovely lot at Regensburger Kurzfilmwoche are such mighty champs, Ostrich Theory will be screening there next week. Specifically, it’s on the 21st, which is a Monday, so if you’re anywhere near Regensburg and you think Mondays are shit - go sink your bum cheeks into a comfy seat at Leerer Beutel Filmgalerie.

14-02-22 / BOGUS FESTIVALS SELLING LAURELS (or HOW I BOUGHT A COWBOY A CURRY)

A cautionary tale for anyone planning a film festival strategy and wondering which ones to spend money on. Before I get to the main point, it’s worth addressing a relevant trend in the short film landscape. I’m talking about the habit of drowning a film’s poster and/or thumbnail with a noisy splat of ‘official selection’ laurels. I’m not really sure when laurels were deemed appropriate for selections, as opposed to prizes, or when selections for anything from Cannes to Coventry were considered worthy of a shout, but here we are. Perhaps the sheer volume of films being made in a democratised age, and the increasing number of festivals out there to accommodate them, has created this increased desperation to be noticed. Laurels have become a grim sort of currency, which in turn has birthed more fake festivals born out of someone’s laptop, offering you easy ‘prizes’ for your marketing. If you don’t happen to agree that a poster with so many laurels you don’t know where to look appears needy, and you might not, I can only hope you don’t find this post interesting for the wrong reasons.

Last November a typical ‘call for entries’ email dropped into my inbox with a link to the festival’s submission page on a FAMOUS FILM FESTIVAL PLATFORM. The fee was only five pounds and, after being initially bamboozled by the insane 65 (!) submission categories, which included daft crap like Best Poster and Best Trailer (the flag is big and very red), I plumped for the experimental category. Don’t ask me why I bothered because I’ve no idea.

Later that day I took a closer look at the festival’s listing and saw that, despite their imminent deadline, their ‘event’ was listed to take place only two days afterwards. Now, the average time it takes a festival to make their selections and host their event is a few months - two at best - so, wondering if I’d just bought two coffees for a charlatan, I emailed them asking how this could be possible. Their reply - “Our team members are many people”.

A subsequent sniff of their website revealed a rather unclear schedule of MONTHLY selections. The official blurb stated ‘After a film has been an official selection, the filmmaker will be notified, and eventually the film will be listed on the festival website under Official Selections. The Official Selection status doesn’t mean that your film will be screened at the festival. It means that your film has been appreciated by our judges of panel and you can use the festival logo on your poster’. Selling laurels to suckers, then. And the only mention of an actual festival is the utterly nebulous ‘Annual event will be held in SINGAPORE OR INDIA’. To further confuse matters there is only a list of selections for the random months of February, August and October. Confused yet? Try to bear with me as the plot thickens.

A few days later I received a super-personal email (‘Dear Filmmaker’…) bearing congratulations for winning BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM, complete with an attached PDF certificate and a request to take a selfie with it for the festival’s Facebook page. You couldn’t make it up. Their listing on the FAMOUS FILM FESTIVAL PLATFORM is full of these selfies in lieu of real festival photos. One chap who could use an extra pair of arms poses with a clutch of them, all framed, like a proper multi-award winning legend.

I then received another email from an ostensibly different festival, once again inviting me to submit, and I couldn’t help noticing that its listing on the FAMOUS FILM FESTIVAL PLATFORM was a copy/paste of the aforementioned festival in all but name – also in its first year, also originating from India, with all the same categories (a separate fee for each), also ‘gold status’ (meaningless), and again accepting any film of any genre made since 2010 (!). Well bugger my ear with veg, I could dip into my back catalogue and top up the award-count for any number of titles, amassing literally hundreds of bogus prizes if I’m willing to pay a fiver for each one. And this particular listing doesn’t even try to pretend that it hosts an event of any kind, having no website and no screenings, either in real life or online. The pandemic-induced absence of live shows surely helps legitimise this and it’s hard not to admire someone’s cunning, but how they are allowed to call themselves a festival and accept submission fees from filmmakers is frankly bananas. I doubt they even watch the films.

I made the FAMOUS FILM FESTIVAL PLATFORM aware of it and they thanked me for bringing it to their attention. Nothing changed. Draw your own conclusions.

More calls for entries burped into my inbox - a new one every few days - all the same listing but with a different festival name (one is called Golden Deer and another Golden Horse but still no Golden Goldfish). Then - PLOT TWIST - I won a second ‘award’ from another clone I didn’t even realise I’d submitted to. That means I no longer spent a mere five pounds on this scam, but a whole ten, which is more than a couple of coffees and more like a curry. With rice. It’s all way more exciting than the book I’m reading so I continue to badger the FAMOUS FILM FESTIVAL PLATFORM and they say there’s little they can do (err… duh). By this time I’ve been contacted by over 10 dupli-fests and even emailed them back saying they aren’t real, with zero comeback. Then something funny happens.

As I’m checking out the various listings and marvelling at the the thought of a real-life Skeletor cackling on a bed made of filmmakers, I spotted the same photograph of a winner holding up his certificate on two different festival pages. In both cases the certificates were clumsily photoshopped by Skeletor’s infant son for extra pocket money, meaning neither image is the original (and likely meaning further dupes). Like a snivelling little snitch, I snitched, and these two listings (at least) were removed from the FAMOUS FILM FESTIVAL PLATFORM. A minor victory, but the rest are all still up there, plus however many others I’m not aware of.

In summary, when you consider how many films which can't get a look-in elsewhere are suddenly given a chance to amass laurels, you quickly understand just how much money someone is wiping their arse with. Especially when there are over 60 categories, all with separate fees, for any film from the last decade, then multiply the whole scam again and again with multiple renamed versions of the same 'festival'... You may as well save the submission fee and invent a festival of your own, or send me cash and I'll happily send you laurels for BEST FOCUS courtesy of Prawn Cracker Film Festival, Nut Sac Film Fortnight, or even the prestigious Golden Flannel. Your poster couldn’t look better.

Jokes aside, this is exactly what someone is doing. And they are getting away with it. I shudder to think on what scale.

07-02-22 / INTERVIEW

A wee interview I did with The New Current following the screening at British Shorts in Berlin.

21-01-22 FIRST FESTIVAL ATTENDANCE IN THIRTY MONTHS

It’s mad to think I hadn’t been to a live festival since June 2019 but last night I broke the spell with a brief pop to London Short Film Festival. It represented what could be my only chance to see Ostrich Theory with an audience and I’m glad I made the effort since it was made with the theatrical experience in mind. The sound design really paid off and the 5.1 audio worked a treat, which was very bloody satisfying indeed.

14-01-22 ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ IN BERLIN

It’s been WAY too long since I visited Berlin. Were it not for omicron travel complications I would have attended British Shorts. It’s a smashing month for Ostrich Theory between this, Stuttgart, Minimalen and London, and could have been a tasty little tour to compensate for two years of visiting no festivals whatsoever.

07-01-22 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ IN LONDON

Some people visit London to see Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, or even the Queen herself. You can see all of these* and more by catching Ostrich Theory at London Short Film Festival on the 20th.

*The Queen is inside a car behind darkened windows but it still counts.

04-01-22 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT MINIMALEN

Just in case you happen to be ambling through Norway on the 13th, all dispirited because you wanted to see the northern lights but only saw clouds, you can at least nip to Trondheim and catch Ostrich Theory on a fancy big screen at Minimalen Short Film Festival.

02-01-22 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT STUTTGART FILMWINTER

It may be the home of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz but Stuttgart is all about Filmwinter, who screen Ostrich Theory next week on the 11th and 13th.

21-12-21 / SHORT FILM DAY

Soft made the list of recommended films to celebrate International Short Film Day. There are quite a few in the full list I haven’t seen, but I’m happy that Julia Ducournau’s Junior is finally online. I have fond memories of seeing that on the big screen and laughing off a Sunday morning hangover.

18-11-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT SAPPORO SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

Ahh Sapporo, such brilliant memories of attending and being lucky enough to visit Japan for three consecutive editions. It’s great to be back in this festival again.

16-11-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT PÖFF SHORTS

Rinsed the online edition of PÖFF Shorts (biggest shorts festival in the Baltics) and enjoyed a mixed bag of films including some of the more offbeat titles - Yorgos Tzikas’ Lefkamos (Greece), Nora Longatti’s Strangers (Switzerland), Manolis Mavris’ Brutalia, Days of Labour (Greece), Marija Apcevska’s North Pole (North Macedonia), Assel Aushakimova’s Comrade Policeman (Kazakhstan), and it was fun to see that Nash Edgerton finally completed his ‘Jack trilogy’ with Shark (Australia).

01-11-21 / OWN GOAL

Horror show. I just attempted to submit Ostrich Theory for BAFTA consideration as the deadline I’ve had on record is 2nd November, but it turns out that the deadline was TWO WEEKS AGO. I googled the deadline again and still the top result is a link to BAFTA’s own regulations saying 2nd November, which happens to be LAST year’s regulations :o

28-10-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT MESSAGE TO MAN

Ostrich Theory will be screening in competition at Message To Man International Film festival in St. Petersburg from tomorrow.

27-10-21 / CRETAN ELECTRIC SKIES

Just back from a break in Crete and was lucky enough to film this :

15-09-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT SPLIT / GUANAJUATO / INDIECORK FILM FESTIVALS

Massive thanks to Split Film Festival in Croatia, Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico, and IndieCork in Ireland for exercising impeccable taste and programming Ostrich Theory in competition. Three proper festivals, gems all, ensuring that all those months of kamikaze, bollock-nipping rotoscoping weren't entirely in vain.

30-07-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT DOKUFEST

Jacked to be screening Ostrich Theory in competition at the mighty Dokufest next week. I've wanted to return to this beautiful festival in Kosovo for ages and as a much-needed getaway I honestly can't think of anywhere I'd prefer to be. Alas, four covid tests required, for a few hundred ££, despite full vaccination. It was a fun dream while it lasted.

15-07-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT DRESDEN FILMFEST

Big thanks to Filmfest Dresden, where Ostrich Theory is an official selection in the open air programme. I wanted so much to attend. Twinned with my birth city, Dresden is the first German city I ever heard of as a wee scrote. My intention to visit the fest has been scuppered a few times - on one occasion just two hours before departure. It's a curse I look forward to smashing but, for now, despite being double-punctured by vaccines, the rise in infections and fluctuating travel restrictions make the whole shebang a royally unpredictable pain in the arsedoor.

29-06-21 / HERE WE GO AGAIN

In honour of the England-Germany European Cup clash today, here’s my documentary World War Cup, concerning an audio recording I made in a city centre bar during a 2010 World Cup match between the two teams.

26-06-21 / THIS IS SHORT

Happy birthday to me. Having participated in Vienna Shorts I had access to the This Is Short portal, a huge online collection of the combined programmes from Oberhausen, GoShort, Short Waves and Vienna Shorts festivals. From the ones I picked through my personal favourites were Roman Hodel’s Das Spiel (The Game) (Switzerland), Dorian Jesper’s Sun Dog (Belgium), Jussi Eerola’s Blue Honda Civic (Finland), Davide Tisato’s Carbón (Switzerland, Cuba, France), Tomáš Hubáček’s Fibonacci (Czech Republic), Márk Beleznai’s Agapé (Hungary), Clélia Schaeffer’s Ten Years (Dix Ans) (France) and Olga Lucovnicova’s My Uncle Tudor (Moldova).

01-06-21 / ‘OSTRICH THEORY’ AT VIENNA SHORTS & HAMBURG SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

Right - this is going to sound nuts - because it is. I haven’t changed a film’s title even once before, let alone twice, but after renaming my latest from the working title of Prelude (too serious, too overused) to Touristism (made me laugh but people kept thinking it was called Tourism and the film really is NOT about that), I’ve finally settled for keeps on Ostrich Theory. And it has had the pleasure of screening at Vienna Shorts in these last few days, plus Hamburg Short Film Festival this week. Some highlights for me from Vienna’s catalogue were Nicolas Gourault’s VO (France), Sebastian Mulder’s Naya (Netherlands), Emma Séméria’s Blackbirds (La Chamade) (France), Christina Garbi’s Now that Spring is Here (Greece), Gorana Jovanović’s Armadila (Serbia), Yann Chapotel’s Inside (France), and Milena Castro’s Julieta And The Moon (Chile).

06-02-21 / LOCARNO SHORT FILM WEEKS

The annual Locarno Short Film Weeks event, in honour of the shortest month. A new film online for free each day. So far I’ve enjoyed Stella Kyriakopoulos’ Mom's Movie (Greece, Spain) and Lasse Linder’s Nachts Sind Alle Katzen Grau (All Cats Are Grey In The Dark) (Switzerland).

02-02-21 / A DIFFERENT VIRUS

Made this cathartic lockdown quickie fun thing to stop myself destroying the kitchen radio when every interviewee on Radio 4 starts their sentence with “So” -

01-02-21 / CLERMONT-FERRAND MARKET PICK

Touristism, previously known as Prelude, is a market pick at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival. It’s no official selection but it’s better than a stubbed toe, and it gave me access to the online festival portal where I enjoyed Sameh Alaa’s I Am Afraid To Forget Your Face (Egypt), Javier Marco’s A La Cara (Face to Face) (Spain), Nyima Cartier’s L'homme Silencieux (A Quiet Man) (France), and Jonatan Etzler’s Badaren (Swimmer) (Sweden).

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