I won’t go into too much detail about the planning stages, since I’ve touched on them at least a few times in the past, but the actual event - an evening of celebrating the best student films the University has to offer was held last Tuesday 15 March, and it seemed to finally come together wonderfully.
Despite slight worries in the week leading up to the festival, due to the fact that we rather bizarrely ended up with too many submissions (I honestly never thought that would be possible!), all ran smoothly on the night thanks to a carefully-formed shortlist.
In the end, after 25 submissions, 14 films, ranging from comedies and horrors to documentaries and music videos, were chosen and screened in their entirety to much applause and fanfare from the surprisingly large audience. Co-founder Pippa and I had been keeping our hopes relatively modest in terms of attendance numbers, but were totally bowled over when we began noticing the room filling out. Exact numbers are still a little hazy, but it was definitely far more than we had ever anticipated!
Our fabulous live audience at the very end of the night!
As one of the hosts for the evening, I tried my best to keep things light. I found myself frequently surprised by not only the quality of the films we showed, but also the audience’s reactions to them. They laughed and cheered along in all the right places, applauded every film as it ended and proved generally supportive of every filmmaker in attendance. It seems silly, but little things like this are what made the event such a success in the end; when everyone is enjoying themselves it makes hosting and organising everything so much easier!
Following the screening, there was a short break for the attendees to mix and network with one another over free wine and food. At the same time, the judging panel disappeared off to a hidden room to discuss who would be walking away with which awards.
Myself and co-founder Pippa - the hosts for the evening.
The panel consisted of myself, head of the Film Department Professor Lucy Mazdon and senior lecturer Dr. Mike Hammond, with input coming in from Southampton alumnus Jonny Ramsay, the current Sales Coordinator at Universal Pictures who unfortunately couldn’t make it on the night. It was truly a testament to the quality of the films entered that deciding the lucky few took some time.
Eventually, with the winners’ names tucked away safely in a series of envelopes, the award ceremony could finally begin.
Thanks to some rather lovely sponsorship from other creative societies including Surge Radio, SUSUtv, Union Films and FilmSoc, as well as the Film Department themselves, the awards consisted of not only little trophies and certificates, but also a series of different assorted prizes, ranging from cinema vouchers to DVD bundles and even a vinyl player!
One by one the winners were read out in eight categories: Best Sound/Music; Best Editing; Best Cinematography; Best Screenplay; Best Acting; Best Directing; Best Film and the Audience Award, voted for by the audience themselves during the break. With huge cheers for all the winners, it seemed that the crowd agreed with the judges.
Our incredible, award-winning filmmakers!
Words cannot describe how happy and relieved I was at the end of it all. Six months of planning and stressing had been entirely worthwhile. It shows how these big projects may seem crazy when you first start them up, but with SUSU’s unparallelled backing they came together beautifully. There are too many people to thank and hug, but to anyone who was involved with the Festival in any way, shape or form, from the deepest depths of my heart: thank you.
To anyone who has ever had a cool idea that they thought was too extravagant: give it a shot. You’ll be surprised with how far you can get, trust me.
Now I’m just going to curl up into a ball over here and sleep for the whole of Easter…
Ben
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