#malwina wodzicka

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FILM FIGHT CLUB S2E41: SF3 SMARTFONE FLICK FEST & WHAT IS DEMOCRACY’S ASTRA TAYLOR

Where we review the best smartphone filmmaking on offer at the SF3 Gala and chat all things What is Democracy with Director Astra Taylor, screening at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival – tune in Wednedays 7:30PM on 2SER and subscribe to the podcast!

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SF3 Celebrates Fifth Year with First Smartphone Feature

“My prediction is that a couple of years from now the fact a feature was shot on a phone will be totally unremarkable. When Blue Moon screened in Dublin the curator didn’t tell the audience until after the screening that it was made on iPhone – the audience was astounded.”

Championing film’s most democratic innovation, Australia’s dedicated Smartphone Film Festival has taken the leap from shorts to features. Having put out the call, SF3 are premiering Stefen Harris’ Blue Moon to an Australian audience which would not have been possible but for what’s now in all our pockets.

“I knew from the get go we were shooting iPhone – that’s what allowed us to green light the film,” said Stefen. “Not necessarily because the camera was cheap and accessible but because the iPhone gave us tremendous freedom – I was giving myself a green light to shoot a feature film in 30 hours over six nights.”

“All these limitations dictated the style of the film. The plan was to keep the camera constantly moving, using long takes up to 8 minutes in some cases. The time pressure meant the actors were under real duress and that translates into their characters on screen.  There was no stop start reset… Any other camera would have slowed us down to the point where we would not have completed the film.”  

Commencing at 4:20AM within a petrol station and concluding at 6AM, the first SF3 Best Feature winner reunites two men who have a tried, decades-old past

“Once the audience was along for the ride there was no opportunity to look away, no respite from the relentless,” said Stefen, who will soon be making the trip over from New Zealand with cast and crew. “There is a ticking clock device built into the story so the characters and audience know something has to happen at six o’clock.”

“We’re totally thrilled to premiere Blue Moon at SF3…. our first screening to an Australian audience is particularly significant for us.”

Hosting the inaugural SF3 Gala at the Chauvel in 2015, throughout each of the successive years the Festival, unique to Australia, has grown in scale, audience and reach. Achieving too a record number of entries at this new milestone, clocking in at over 200 this year and now over 1000 since the Festival started, SF3 has opened an uncommonly accessible avenue to filmmakers; local and international. With the smartphone advent dually attracting both seasoned filmmakers who want to experiment together with burgeoning Directors who can render ideas achievable with their new Galaxy, the Festival remains a unique networking opportunity and distinctively creative forum for filmmakers of wide-ranging experience.

Importantly, SF3 has also excelled in three major respects. Firstly, and this really shouldn’t be of note but here we are; the Festival has consistently highlighted the most deserving technicians and creative minds behind its crops of finalists.

In 2017, Ren Thackham’s Rearview deservedly garnered the bulk of SF3’s major awards with her stand-out short, as did Malwina Wodzicka with 2018’s no doubt best entry She Rose. Not all Film Festivals consistently reward the best addition to any year’s slate, a matter of familiar and ongoing frustration for fans and filmmakers alike. Winning at SF3 and moreover so for succeeding filmmakers so deserving of their plaudits is no minor matter for any up and coming creator.

Secondly, and to this point, SF3 has consistently achieved what any Festival should set out to do; providing a grounding for filmmakers to grow their career. Having served as a key breakthrough for creatives, Thackham, who this week was the only entrant to nab Jury and Audience Awards at the Short + Sweet Film Festival, too returned for the 2018 SF3 Finals and, amidst composing the SF3 2019 trailer, is now preparing for her first feature film.

Wodzicka, in 2018 a first-time Director, too returned to this year’s Finals and following the 2018 Gala has gone on to receive numerous accolades for She Rose at Festivals around the world.

Finally, SF3, an early Festival to recognise the soon to be much greater significance of Virtual Reality technology within the film industry, again returns to a now weekend of Festivities with the dedicated VR strand SF360. Preceding the Gala Awards this Sunday, the preceding Saturday will too showcase SF3 Kids, SF3’s Masterclass and Blue Moon.

“It was always going to be just a matter of time before we opened up our festival to include a smartphone feature film,” said SF3 co-Founder Alison Crew. “We thought, why don’t we just add it as a new category and put it out there and see what we get? We really didn’t know. If all else failed we could maybe do a retrospective screening of Tangerine.”

“As it turned out, we received 11 feature film entries! And to our surprise, they were all really good, We’d already made the decision to screen just one this year to test the water and demand. But having received so many great films, we’re considering growing the Festival next year to include more features. It may be that we bring back some of the other films that were entered this year, they really were that good. I definitely see smartphone features as where SF3 will grow into the future.”

“This is momentous for SF3,” said Festival co-Founder Angela Blake. “Since the beginning we knew we wanted to eventually screen a feature to complement our Gala and SF3 Kids. 5 years ago when we started, smartphone filmmaking was still relatively new, we were still convincing people that this could be done, that the films looked amazing.”

“We were blown away by the quality (of the feature entries). We wanted to screen them all! And they came from every corner of the world: Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Georgia, Italy, UK, and India. But just wait till you see Blue Moon, wowsers. It is shot on an iPhone 7+ but that just doesn’t matter anymore because the film is just so incredible. You forget it’s shot on a phone and instead are lost in the cinematography, the script, the actors and the world.”

This year’s Gala Finals, acknowledging changes in the medium, have too adapted as smartphones have become both more adept and ubiquitous in film circles.

“For the first year we extended our time limit from 6.5 minutes to 20 minutes, so that is a huge change for the audience,” said Angela. “We realised filmmakers are getting savvy on their phones and starting to make longer films… we have 15 films in our Official selection, ranging in time from a 1 minute French comedy about vegetables to a 18 minute Russian drama about the dangers of live streaming.”

Amid international entries there are numerous Australian Gala finalists including Colder; developed by local filmmaker and Kino Sydney regular Kenny Foo together with Kino Director Byran Fisher.

“Many months of hard work by a small and dedicated group of friends have gone into this 13 minute short,” said Bryan. “This was the first film shot on a phone that all of us had worked on… it’s incredibly rewarding to have your hard work recognised by such a prestigious Festival. It’s both exciting and terrifying to see this film on the big screen in a full house (but mainly exciting).”

“We have some beautiful Aussie finalists including comedies about the selfie culture among parents, a horror film set in the suburbs of Sydney, two inspirational tales, a Jewish wedding gone wrong and so much more,” said Angela. “It’s always interesting to see the issues of the world reflected in the stories of films we get. A change this year is that we have seen a lot of films entered telling tales of the dangers of living your life on line and live streaming your life via social media.”

With prizes worth in excess of $40,000 up for the taking, SF3 will take place at Event Cinemas George Street from September 14-15.

on Festevez

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SF3 GALA 2018 SHOWS WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH AN IPHONE OR SAMSUNG

“Smartphone filmmaking has come a long way – thank you for supporting the democratisation of filmmaking”

SF3 SmartFone Flick Fest co-founders Angela Blake and Alison Crew welcomed the Festival’s largest-ever crowd to last night’s Gala, the first ever SF3 event to screen at the Opera House. Filling out the Playhouse theatre, SF3 began in 2015at the Chauvel Cinema in Paddington, Sydney, the Festival’s home until 2017, where SF3 consistently drew larger crowds, more filmmakers and more accomplished films. 2018, the first year with 13 finalists, in addition to the return of the Kids, #Filmbreaker and Founders’ Flick Awards saw more than ever before increasing experimentation and that resembling the output of some of the best cameras you’ll struggle to fit in your pocket.

(Pictures by Bob Barker)

‘She Rose,’ a stark black-and-white piece quite literally about a person confronting their shadows, took out the Best Film prize as well as Best Director. Malwina Wodzicka, a Melbourne-based Editor and first-time Director, having only the day prior taken first place at Spain’s Cinephone Festival for the same flick told the crowd “I honestly never thought my film would screen at the Sydney Opera House… thank you so much.”

Among several quality entries, including Sydney filmmaker Lauren Orrell’s “I’m Too Sad To Tell You” about a suicidal woman’s encounter with an unlikely person and ‘Clickbait’ by UK filmmaker Ryan Phillips, a comedy about the worst thing that can happen to you if you click on a pop-up, for the second year running the clear stand-out amidst the competition deservedly took the top prizes.

Returning to the competition, last year’s winner Ren Thackham, who went home with Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Female Director for her short ‘Rearview’ last night won Best Screenplay for ’97 Seconds,’ the most heart-warming and endearing comedy among several that screened. Reminiscent in stretches of “Doctor Who’s” McCoy-era, ’97 Seconds’ blended high-concept sci-fi with a very, very human story.

“A Ghost’s Story” by Sydney’s Kate Heffernan won the #Filmbreaker Award for emerging and first-time filmmakers for her flick about a spirit getting increasingly annoyed by returning ghost hunters, while Orrell took home the Women in Film and Television (WIFT) Australia Award for an Australian Film for “I’m Too Sad To Tell You,” which also netted the prize for Best Actress.

Showcasing just what you can do with an iPhone or Samsung, there are huge advantages to shooting on a smartphone. While the product may not always be as sharp, or necessarily as focused (notably each film was shot predominantly in daylight or well-lit environments), there are places you can weave and jut a smartphone you just can’t manage with a regular camera. There are huge advantages in getting candid, public or expedient shots made exponentially more difficult by the presence of a conspicuous camera and, most importantly, it gives just about everyone the opportunity to become a filmmaker.

SF3 is filling that crucial space in the industry, recognising that emerging talent, new talent and, significantly, tentative talent needs to be nurtured if we are going to see a new generation of dynamic filmmakers. Those looking to break out or even start their first film will invariably shoot on what they have available which will in many cases be their smartphones. This advent should be encouraged, and SF3 is doing a marvellous job of ensuring that those looking to do so have a platform to get their work out there.

The SF3 Kids Best Film winner ‘I Hate It’ by Ethan Do was also a highlight of the night; a brief, charming episode about our affinities to pop culture to which just about any movie fan can relate. The Festival also featured the returning SF360 competition focused on virtual reality, with ‘Vega Islands’ all the way from Norway winning the prize for its chronicling of several small stories of the lives of local islanders.

With voting for the annual Audience Award now open, entries for next year’s competition will open in May 2019.