11-06-19 / FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HAMBURG SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
A feature-length documentary I have been working on for four years is nearing completion. A nice feeling. Watch this space for further information.

I made a small short film called Timelapse for Hamburg Short Film Festival's Lost in Translation competition. And no, it isn't a timelapse. You can find approximately 57 million of those over on vimeo staff picks ;) I didn't see any of the international competion programmes films but some films I liked were Reber Dosky's Meryem (Netherlands), Martin A. Walther's Train Robbers (Norway), Pavlo Ostrikov's Graduation '97 (Ukraine), and Rune Spaans' The Absence of Eddy Table (Norway).

14-01-19 / RE-TROS MUSIC VIDEO NOW LIVE
An animated film I did for up-and-coming, Depeche-Mode-supporting, Beijing-based trio Re-TROS is now live. Inspired by the cover art from their critically-acclaimed album 'Before The Applause', many alternating hours of headaches and beard-twizzling went into its creation. Please appreciate the music through headphones or non-phone speakers. Then buy their album.

 

12-11-18 / WINTERTHUR SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
I finally made it to Winterthur International Short Film Festival in Switzerland, after many years of feeling like the only one still to attend. They screened Stew & Punch as part of a UK focus and I was lucky that the programme I was part of had sold out (they even had to bring in extra seats). I was the only director from the programme present for a Q&A but almost everyone stayed for it, which was nice.

Some standout films were Corina Schwingruber Ilić's All Inclusive (Switzerland), Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis' Swatted (France), Rati Tsiteladze's Prisoner Of Society (Georgia) and Salomé Jashi's Speechless (Georgia).

30-09-18 / 'THE BIGGER MAN WAS NOT EMBARRASSED' AT ENCOUNTERS
Returned home positively buzzing from Encounters this year, having devoured some great films and getting myself all bowled over by the Georgian programmes (fully wow). My film The Bigger Man Was Not Embarrassed received a wee nod in Sight & Sound magazine as a festival recommendation, which was a lovely bonus. I attended more screenings than usual and skipped my own, but from what I hear the film was in fine company and I missed an all-round good show, gah. Having recorded the source audio for the film this time last year, after a night at this very festival, I once again found myself transfixed by the drunken debauchery going down at the harbourside. I'm sure it gets madder each year.

Some highlights - Isabel Lamberti's Amor (Netherlands), Lucy Bridger's Mothering (UK), Marian Khatchvani's Dinola (Georgia), Jérémy Comte's Fauve (Canada), Charles Williams' All These Creatures (Australia), Alyssa McClelland's Second Best (Australia), Nana Ekvtimishvili's Waiting For Mum (Georgia), Dea Kulumbegashvili's Invisible Spaces (Georgia), Andrea Brusa & Marco Scotuzzi's Magic Alps (Italy), plus a brilliant three-film retrospective of 'Georgian Master' Mikheil Kobakhidze.

17-09-18 / EUROPEAN FILM COLLEGE
Just back from my third visit to the excellent European Film College in Denmark, giving a series of talks about all things short film. Once again, the students were a keen bunch, full of hungry questions and keeping me on my toes. Love this place.

11-06-18 / 'THE BIGGER MAN WAS NOT EMBARRASSED' AT HAMBURG
The third (and probably final) typographical short film about drunk Britain, The Bigger Man Was Not Embarrassed, just screened at Hamburg International Short Film Festival. Like Brass Heaven and World War Cup, it is based on clandestine audio recording of drunken behaviour. This particular episode focuses on an aggressive, posturing man on the Saturday night streets of Bristol while attending Encounters Film Festival last September.

20-05-18 / WARSAW SHOOT
I just returned from a few weeks in Warsaw, directing two commercials and getting to play with all kind of toys. During a day of blazing sunshine, we created a storm with wind, rain and hail. Then an actual storm came and cleared us off set! Also got to destroy a car, work with a superstar dog, and enjoy a puffy purple ankle from spider bites in the long grass (avoided the ticks though - one crew member wasn't so lucky).

08-12-17 / STEW & PUNCH RELEASED ONLINE
Finally, an online debut for Stew & Punch, with the fine-taste folk at Short of the Week. This one is a favourite of mine (if not top of the list) for all sorts of reasons. As usual, you can also find it on its dedicated page.

15-11-17 / COMMERCIAL BANNED
A commercial I recently directed was just broadcast on TV and promptly banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for being deemed "too scary". A mere seven complaints can do this. 

10-11-17 / HANCHENG VIDEO DIARY
Finally got this chopped up, from the China trip which ended exactly one month ago:

21-10-17 / TALK AND JURY DUTY IN TRONDHEIM, NORWAY
I was kindly invited by Sami filmmaker Marja Bal Nango to the KortFilmKonventet (Short Film Convention) in Trondheim. She had to choose a fellow filmmaker for a director-to-director talk and I was the lucky one. A two-day programme of talks and screenings, I also sat on the jury for the filmmaker pitching competition alongside Lisa Ogdie of Sundance Film Festival and Per Fikse of Minimalen Short Film Festival (who was also in China, officially making it a small world). I made sure to visit Hell, too. As usual, more images on Instagram.

19-10-17 / CHINA (UPDATE - VIDEO 2 POSTS UP)
I returned from Hancheng ten days ago but since went to an event in Norway and fallen behind. I'm also editing a small travelogue film to accompany this China entry but haven't had chance to finish it yet so watch this space. In the meantime, you can see more images via my Instagram.

This was my second visit to planet China, and on this occasion it was for the 1st Jinzhen International Short Film Festival. I was representing the short film Spinosaurus, which I shot & edited for my mate Tessa Hoffe. All in all, a fantastic time was had and new friends were made, albeit with memorable bumps along the way.

The city of Hancheng, population approximately 450,000, dubbed a "village" by some of the Chinese volunteers, was a very different prospect to my previous Chinese experiences in Ningbo and megacity Shanghai. Personally, I loved the place and could easily have stayed longer, for the food, the filming, and the warm-spirited locals. Full of excited curiosity about westerners (especially those with beards), children were struck by giggle-fits and the really young ones would sometimes freak out and start screaming in fear. Locals were constantly aiming their camera phones, sometimes discreetly, sometimes less so, and sometimes from both sides at once. It only became too much while navigating slurpy noodles.

A local lady who eavesdropped on a conversation I attempted to have with a shopkeeper proceeded to follow me around for the next 15 minutes, stopping when I stopped, resuming pace as I did, until I eventually about-turned and walked so fast through the crowds that a ninja would've struggled to keep up. This was the 'real China' I had heard about but didn't really find before, with toddlers walking around in crotchless, toilet-ready trousers and adults staring at you like you're made of vegetables. The public toilet-training is something I could do without, especially when it happens right in front of you while eating.

But this is all jumping ahead. Arrival at the festival hotel saw a glitchy start to proceedings, with shocked (and sleep-deprived) directors being paired up into shared rooms. I was as horrified as everyone else, but one poor guy who was ill found himself pleading to have his own space. I got lucky being paired with very cool French director Clément Courcier. Talented bugger and all, going on to win best experimental film and taking home a generous cash prize. Dude as he was though, it's not ideal for anyone having to sync their timetables with a roommate so as not to disturb them, and jetlag-induced middle-of-the-night writing, for example, was out of the question. After discovering that another filmmaker objected strongly enough to sharing and got her own room, I managed to do the same (with the help of Lynn - thanks again!).

"First world problems" included unreliable (often dead) WiFi, which was a bigger frustration for those who were in the middle of projects requiring Skype calls, thus having to work from the lobby. Similarly absent was coffee, and the chirpy vendor across the street probably never sold so much sweet Nescafe, his face lighting up whenever a filmmaker walked in. More baffling though was an apparent lack of toilet paper, only issued in a single teeny-tiny roll per room at a time. I get it that coffee isn't a staple, but surely everyone needs loo roll (except for me of course - I'm visited by the poo fairy while I sleep).

The festival's glamorous, Oscars-like opening and closing ceremonies wore affluence like a hat. By comparison, the daily exhibition of films was consistently troubled, with seemingly endless technical problems involving bad audio, no audio, no subtitles, Chinese subtitles covering English ones, etc. Such problems seemed to be lessening as the festival went on and I got the feeling that the staff and volunteers were overwhelmed by the amount of work required. I didn't attend many screenings because I'm too easily distracted by the Chinese audience talking loudly through films, checking their phones or, in one case, bringing a flashing balloon into the cinema (!). I remember this from last time and it is simply their way, to discuss everything, at full volume, as it happens. It wasn't their intention to be rude, and the shock on people's faces when asked to be quieter during a screening said it all.

There was a funny moment in a department store when six of us couldn't work out how to pay for anything. What should have been simple through a series of mimes and pointing at cash was actually an almost-impossible mission that lasted twenty minutes. When the store manager finally found us to resolve the situation, it transpired that everyone pays via WeChat on their phones and cash transactions need special approval. It also turned out the prices were more expensive than advertised so we ended up putting most things back anyway.

Excursions kindly arranged by the festival included the ancient Liu village - mostly roofless ruins but with a few still-inhabited homes. Mooching through one particular corner of a crumbling house, I stopped inches shy of receiving a face-full of Joro spider. Described as 'The living fossil of the ancient and traditional foilk community of the Orient', Dangjia ancient village was bigger and utterly heaving with tourists. I was especially pleased to see the Sima Qain temple and do a spot of filming for a new, ongoing short film idea.

Between such trips (and of course the screenings), everyone came to grow fond of the hotel and its nightly, impromptu lobby gatherings, not to mention the hotel's 3rd floor of hi-tech karaoke rooms-for-hire. I'm no fan of karaoke, but a fully-decked out club room with beer, snacks and sofas turned out to be a regular fixture for filmmakers partying into the wee hours (right through until breakfast, in some cases).

A Chinese lady sitting next to me on the flight home really summed things up. Noisily cracking seeds between her teeth from the moment she sat down (a huge red flag to a misophone like myself), she regularly barged my elbows or leaned right over me to look out of the window. Earplugs didn't quite block the sound of splintering seeds and the resultant fight-or-flight panic/rage that usually hijacks me in these situations started to creep in. However, once I offered her my uneaten crackers from the first in-flight meal, she couldn't help sharing at every conceivable opportunity. This lady, who had initially become a huge discomfort to me, went on to offer me her bottle of water, her bun, the egg in her fried rice, and eventually her aforementioned seeds (which she thankfully stopped eating).

Delerium from lack of sleep had me leave my laptop on the final flight out of Helsinki. Amazingly, Finnair traced/called me while I was on the underground from Heathrow to central London, so I returned and got it back. I'm already looking back and smiling at the memories - navigating the insanely busy crossings, the 'no horns' signs ignored by every single bleating car, the cab drivers smoking in their 'no smoking' cabs, the men and women farting noisily in the street, the ice-filled urinals in a posh hotel (our hotel's toilet cubicles didn't even have doors)... the list goes on. This is a culture so vastly unfamiliar in which the only constant is to expect the unexpected. I feel damn privileged to have experienced it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat..

Some film highlights were Makoto Nagahisa's And So We Put the Goldfish in the Pool (Japan), Douwe Dijkstra's Green Screen Gringo (Netherlands), Tessa Pope's The Origin of Trouble (Netherlands), Kamal Parnak's Hasti (Iran), Francis' Ten to the Minus Forty Three Second (France), Maimouna Doucoure's Mother(s) (France), Christophe Switzer's Soury (France), Ronny Trocker's Estate (Belgium), plus some animated films - Giulia Martinelli & Marta Gennari's Merlot (Italy), Anita Kwiatkowska-Naqvi's Locus (Poland), and Henning Thomas' Hallux (Germany).

24-09-17 / EUROPEAN FILM COLLEGE / ENCOUNTERS FILM FESTIVAL
A smasher was had in Ebeltoft (Denmark) at the European Film College once again, since my first visit two years ago. Presenting a mixture of lectures and screenings about short film, I'm probably repeating myself in saying it really is the consideration for any fledgling filmmakers out there who are wondering where (and if) to study. If that means you, don't just raise your eyebrows - look into it.

Then it was Encounters Film Festival again, this time representing a film I didn't direct - Tessa Hoffe's short film Spinosaurus, which I shot and edited last year. Right back to old-school guerilla tactics on this one, with only two days, only available light, no funding, first-time young actors and a production crew of just Tess, myself, and sound recordist Peter Brill.

27-07-17 / 'THE HEIST' LAUNCHES ON FACEBOOK
I've been waiting very patiently to get this out. A spot for Royal Mail about identity fraud:

15-06-17 / 'ON RESISTANCE' AT HAMBURG SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
Well. THREE months since my last post. It's apparent that Twitter and Instagram are responsible for this blog becoming almost redundant. The fact that I've wanted to change this whole site for too long and can't find the time to learn new software doesn't help. I'm actually working on several projects at once but it isn't very interesting to write about screenwriting and/or tedious rotoscoping, which are the two things taking up most of my time.

Hamburg Short Film Festival time again, and I made this for their 3 Minute Quickie competition:


The UK focus programmes (which also included Soft) were a nice catch. Some films I hadn't seen for years, and some gems I'd never seen at all. Our very own John Smith programmed two of the shows, sharing films that inspired him in his early career. My flight home was like Brass Heaven all over again, literally cornered by 20+ stags at the back of the plane. A friendly bunch, mind.

27-03-17 / 'WORLD WAR CUP' AWARDED IN POLAND
Whoot, last night, World War Cup scooped a prize in the international competition at Short Waves festival in Poznan, Poland. What a lovely lift. And what a brave jury (with exemplary taste, I might add) to give an award to such an oddity. To think I almost attended this festival until the last moment. Then I spent the last few days regretting it as I saw various peoples' Instagram posts. Then, finally, when the email came in inviting me to come and collect the prize in person, I didn't see it until 24 hours later (i.e. today, when the awards ceremony was only a few hours away). So that bit is shit, but otherwise, YESSS!

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