Monday 4 November 2013

CINECITY, the Brighton Film Festival


Last week I was lucky enough to go to the launch event for this year's CineCity Film Festival and aside from being one of the first to get my hands on a copy of the brochure, I also gained an interesting insight into how the festival comes together.

This year's festival features more films from different countries then ever before including: Singapore, Laos, Kurdistan, China, Iran, India, Israel, Mexico, as well as Poland, Czech Republic, Scandinavia, France and the US. 

Still taken from 'Burn the Clocks'

However it's not all international as an important part of the festival is the Brighton Screenings strand. To qualify for this section of the festival the films must be made in Brighton, or filmed with a Brighton crew and it must have been completed after September 2012. We often tell people that the city is a hub for creative people and yet I was still surprised to hear that the panel received 75 submissions. It's great to discover that Brighton is home to such a wealth of talent. Although as the standard of entries was particularly high this year it meant the panel had the unenviable task of somehow whittling the entries down to just 26. To make the process more tricky, apart from looking at the submissions as individual pieces of work, the panel also had to consider how the films would flow together as a package of shorts.

So when you're planning what to see during the festival don't forget to check out the Brighton Screenings to see the home grown talent and place your bets on who will be the next Ben Wheatley or Paddy Considine.

Charlotte

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