By Rakesh Singh-Gola
The Reel Film Festival will be held from the 24th-26th of February in Islington this year and will showcase up and coming filmmakers all around the local borough including a screening of this year’s winner for the Short Film award at London Metropolitan University and will also be chaired by Journalism Senior Lecturer Jude Rogers.
This is a perfect opportunity for amateur film makers to display their talent as the festival will have professional film judges from Film Four and The Telegraph. Films of any genre are only accepted in the competition by the 21st of January. The short film theme is ‘A place called England’ and has a 10 minute time restriction; the winner will receive an award of £200.
The venues will be held all around the Islington borough, where most tickets are going free and some tickets are going for a maximum of just £4. Although it’s a film festival there will also be a closing off with an orchestra playing on the last day in tribute of a composer John Dankworth.
Amateur film director and Editor Jordan Richardson, 21 said: “This is a great opportunity to get your name out there for all amateur film makers, it’s not about the £200 award, it is about the recognition which is incredibly hard to be in film. I work on many different platforms for editing, it’s a shame I didn’t attempt, and maybe I’ll try for it next year if there is another festival.”
‘Reel Islington’ also have a film club which takes place every Friday evening of the month in Seven Sisters; Nag’s Head which costs up to £5 where screenings will be held from 7:30pm.
Amateur film makers look for any sort of publicity to promote their work, who knows maybe one day a local film director could be nominated for a BAFTA award in the near future.
Oyku Egri, 23, Anime editor from Japan said: “I originally grew up in Tottenham, but I’ve moved to Beppu in Japan now. My starting point in the genre of Anime in film was just drawing and created mini clips of animations when I was living in the UK. Starting from the bottom and entering competitions is a great way to get publicity for your work.”
Watch out for short film reviews for the movies that are displayed during the festival at London Metropolitan University.
Tickets are available at www.reelislington.com