Rest Stop Wins Best Comedy at Oscar-Qualifying Rhode Island Film Festival

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Holy smokes! At our first festival and World Premiere I just found out Rest Stop took home the Grand Prize of Best Comedy Short! Thank you so much to our brilliant cast and crew! 

Rest Stop played the Opening Night slot at the festival, "Flickers' Road to the Oscars®",” a signature theme for the Festival. Some of the best short films that the 2015 festival has to offer are showcased. 

Now in its 19th year Rhode Island Film Festival has gone onto to become New England's largest film festival. Ranked as one of the Top 10 Film Festivals and featured by Moviemaker magazine as "Top 50 Film Festivals Worth the entry fee"

RIIFF, as noted, is also a qualifying festival for the Short Film Academy Award and the Short Documentary Academy Award through its affiliation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. There are 19 film festivals worldwide which share this distinction and RIIFF is the only festival in New England. 

Rest Stop was selected from over 5,700 entries from over 73 countries. to screen at the festival

 

 

I am selected for the Talent Lab at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015

Over the last week I was very excited to be one of the filmmakers selected for the Edinburgh Talent Lab and this wasn't just as they fed me Italian food for five days and put me and Rob up in a flat bigger than where we live now.

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The lab picks emerging UK Directors, screenwriters and producers all with a feature film project to attend a talent lab that runs alongside the film festival for four days of lectures, screenings and tailored 1-2-1s.

Some of the speakers included director Rachel Tunnard (How I Lived Mine, Creative England), producer Tristan Golighter (The Bureau), Head of Indie Go Go Miranda Fleming and producer Allon Reich (Dredd, Sunshine on Leith). 

 

They kicked off the lab with an intense speed dating session in which we all had to introduce ourselves to each other within 3 minutes. I am now fully practiced in reeling off my biography to anyone in the space of 90 seconds.

The rest of the week was fantastic and I can't really recommend the lab enough. I met some lovely filmmakers whose features I'm excited to see and the 121s really helped me work out the next step in my career and the right route for the two feature projects I took to the lab.  Absolute highlight of my 121's was meeting the wickedly talented Kyle Patrick Alvarez who was up there with the fantastic Stanford Prison Project, which won the Alfred P.Sloan Prize and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance this year.

I've walked away with meetings already lined up with production companies and agents when I get back to London and also got to meet festival programmers including Sundance but most importantly I got to cement my reputation of not to be messed with when it comes to film quizzes with our quiz team, The People Under The Stairs. Here is our team below during the drawing round for Trainspotting, in which you had to draw as much you could about Trainspotting for 1 minute and I basically yelled "BABY ON THE CEILING"  for a minute. I am also very good at yelling "Baby on the ceiling" now.

I also managed to catch quite a few films at the festival. Highlights would be COP CAR, DOPE and my favourite DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL by Marielle Heller, which is one of the most honest, funny and brilliant deceptions of female coming-of-age I've ever seen. 

ARTICLE "EDINBURGH UNVEILS INDUSTRY LINE-UP" ABOUT THE LAB IN SCREEN DAILY 

ARTICLE "EIFF TALENT LAB 2015" ON EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WEBSITE

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Rest Stop confirms USA premiere at the Rhode Island International Film Festival nominated for Best Short Film

Super excited to announce that my short REST STOP has just confirmed it's USA premiere at the 19th Annual Flickers: Rhode Island International Film Festival and that we are in contention for their Oscar-qualifying grand prize of Best Short Film.

The festival was named by Moviemaker magazine as one of the "Top 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry fee" and seven of the films that have premiered at Rhode Island have won Academy awards, with 32 going on to be nominated, while many others gaining distribution with the likes of HBO, Showtime and IFC. 

I got this lovely letter from Shawn Quirk, the Program Director there. 

As part of the festival I had to send them a still of me hitchhiking there so here is a picture my boyfriend took of me, awkwardly standing in Trafalgar Square. 

Valentine playing before Lena Dunhams Tiny Furniture as part of 'Little Women. Big Stories' at the Bechadel Test Fest, introduced by Little White Lies Sophie Monks Kaufman

Super excited to say that VALENTINE has been asked to be screened before the brilliant Tiny Furniture by Lena Dunham on Wednesday 25th March at 4pm at the Hackney Picturehouse. 

It is playing as part of the 'Little Women. Big Stories' , a series of four screenings organised in collaboration with Cinemania and will be introduced by Little White Lies staff writer Sophie Monks Kaufman. Other screenings include Appropriate Behaviour by Desiree Akhavan and Haifaa Al-Mansour's Wadjda. 

Bechdel Test Fest is the brainchild of Corrina Antrobus, a London-based film-blogger who noticed that 2015 marked the 30th anniversary of Alison Bechdel's comic strip that introduced the famous "test"

You can read more about the festival HERE

 

 

Valentine featured in The Londonist on International Women's Day

Valentine has been chosen to be featured by the Londonist for International Women's Day in their article: Modern Girls And A Gypsy Family In London

You can read my article with them HERE

The Londonist is an online guide to London, it receives over 3 million page views per month. “You’ll never be ‘tired of London’ with Londonist at your fingertips”
The Independent

Valentine screening before Birdman at the Everyman pop-up cinema in Selfridges as part of International Women's Day & Underwire Film Festival

As second screening for VALENTINE as part of International Women's Day! We will be showing at Selfridges pop-up cinema before Birdman this week, in a selection of feature screenings curated by the Underwire Film Festival, where VALENTINE had it's premiere last year. 

Got this lovely message from Hoss Ghonouie at the Everyman office: "Can I also just say on a personal note that this film is amazing and very popular in the Everyman head office. Thanks so much for being a part of our Women’s Day / week fun".

Day made.  


I have been asked to join the Film Fatales, directors collective founded by Leah Meyerhoff (I Believe in Unicorns)

Very excited and happy to say that the brilliant London Chapter of the Film Fatales have asked me to join their collective. 

Film Fatales  is a collective of female feature directors who meet regularly to mentor each other, collaborate on projects and create a supportive community in which to make their films. It's basically a female Stonecutters. Members include Nisha Ganatra (Director/Producer on Transparent, Amazon), Gita Pullapilly (Variety's One of 10 Directors to Watch) and founder Eliza Hittman (It Felt Like Love). 

Or as their website puts it: 

"The group was founded in 2013 in New York City and his since expanded to include over two dozen local chapters around the world. Members meet in small groups hosted inside the homes different filmmakers each month, to share a meal, update each other on their projects, and engage in a moderated discussion about relevant topics in film.

In an industry where less than 5% of the top grossing Hollywood films and less than 15% of independent features are directed by women, Film Fatales provides a space for female filmmakers to support each other, share resources, and help get their films made. In addition to the monthly meetings, Film Fatales supports a number of other collaborative programs including: writing groups, master classes, panel discussions, film festival programming, educational workshops, theatrical field trips, and numerous other special events." 

Film Fatales has quickly become a grassroots community of collaboration and support. I had a wonderful first meeting and am very happy they've asked me to join and what I can learn from the group over the months to come. 

"I think filmmaking can be so lonely especially if you’re not in film school. You’re editing alone, you’re writing alone, you’re traveling to festivals alone. And so, just to have a network of other filmmakers that you can share with is fantastic. Especially female filmmakers! And rather than being competitive, it’s collaborative. Which is really important" - Founder Leah Meyerhoff