#projection room

[thejacksmit]

TheJackSmit.com at the 2024 Lytham International Film Festival

August Bank Holiday meant only one thing - the mother of all storms - but also the second edition of a film festival that's making waves in the North and far beyond. LYIFF returned to the Lowther Pavilion, with 105 submissions from across the globe, 15 world premieres, 3 'foot in the door' workshops for aspiring filmmakers, and plenty of opportunities to meet the talent behind the films in competition. As usual, here at TheJackSmit.com we're quite proud of the North, so it is always a joy to be able to cover the event, and actually talk to the movers and shakers in this industry.

HERE'S SOMETHING WE MADE EARLIER: LYIFF becomes the first festival to feature on The Journal

Usually we'd have a huge written piece on all of the highlights when it comes to the shorts - but we doubled our coverage to see 35 of the 105 selections across features, shorts and music videos in the 2024 festival. So, naturally... we went all out and added The Journal to the mix. Seeing as we made the episode before knowledge of the award winners came through to Smit HQ - we had to wait to be able to name them. So without any further delay, here are this year's winners, all films you should 100% have a read up about.

THE LYIFF AWARDS 2024

BEST FEATURE: The Way to Happiness (dir: Nicolas Steil)

BEST SHORT: Good Boy (dir: Tom Stuart)

BEST REGIONAL FILM (sponsored by Chris Allen Mazda): Autonomous Winter Shelter (dir: Dean Cooper)

BEST ACTOR: Tillman Eckardt (Once and For Real)

BEST ACTRESS: Daria Panchenko (A Day in February)

BEST DIRECTOR: Parker Croft (As Easy As Closing Your Eyes)

BEST SCREENPLAY: Baby On Board (Stephen Volk)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Last Embrace (Paul Meyers, dir: Diego Contreras)

BEST EDITING: [Insert Short Film Title] (dir: Kory Orban)

BEST VFX: Wild Summon (Saul Freed, dir: Karni Arieli & Saul Freed)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - Judged by John Parr (best known for St Elmo's Fire [Man in Motion], and LYIFF 23 winning short Unconquered): The First Time I Never Met You (Joseph Alexander, dir: Eric Kole)

BEST MUSIC VIDEO - Judged by John Parr: You Feel It Too (Moxy the Band)

LYIFF CREATIVITY AWARD: Sound 7406 (dir: Goran Sporcic)

BEST COMEDY: The Snip (dir: Ben S. Hyland)

BEST AFTER DARK (Horror/Thriller): Rain, Rain, Go Away (dir: Sebastiano Pupino)

BEST EXPERIMENTAL: Ava (dir: Stella Brajterman)

BEST ANIMATION: Nerd (dir: Gus Menese)

BEST FACTUAL: Beyond the Beach: The Hell and the Hope (dir: Graeme Scott & Buddy Squires)

BEST DRAMA: In 100 Years (dir: Hektor Hornsleth)

BEST FIRST TIME DIRECTOR: Kathryn Georghiou (Changing Tides)

LYIFF RISING STAR: Csnad Noll (dir: The Files - aged just 15 and showcasing his debut short at the Festival, judges have identified him as a talent to watch in the future)

During our day on site, I got to chat with Kathryn Georghiou (director of Changing Tides), Johnny Herbin (director of Cakes!), Rosie Fox (writer/composer/star of Bonny Chip) and Goran Sporcic (director of Sound 7406) at the various Q&As and between screenings, and this is what makes LYIFF unique- as one minute you can literally be sat with the filmmakers, talking shop about the business, before seeing their work on the big screen. It's a proper family vibe, and I know a lot of the people who attended the festival can attest to that.

WORKSHOPS FOR THE FUTURE

New for this edition was the LYIFF Foot in the Door programme, a way for the filmmakers of the future to learn from those involved in the festival's selections. On the Friday, festival director (and also the director of The Renata Road) Ed Greenberg lead a workshop on exactly what it takes to produce a quality short film, on any budget, that will do well on the festival circuit - including all the ways to get funding, in a 45 minute workshop that ended up going an hour because there was so much valuable information on offer. On the Saturday, the aspiring screenwriters got to talk to filmmaker and author Andrew David Barker about writing for the short form, ahead of a screening of his short film Baby on Board later that evening. Then on the Sunday morning, Richard Albiston gave the workshop most filmmakers want to hear: the inside line on getting your film seen and distributed. Richard knows his onions about all this, as owner of The Cannon Film Company (as well as being the protege of the late Menahem Golan), he has an eye for identifying promising low budget films that will do big things internationally, as well as being a filmmaker in his own right.

2025 AND BEYOND: Northern Film Matters

Artists impression of the Lowther Pavilion's new Education Centre and Studio, due to open April 2025

Speaking to the team at the festival, as well as staff at the Lowther Pavilion, the next two years for LYIFF are going to see some serious evolution - all being well, next April the Pavilion will open their Education Centre and Studio, providing a second indoor venue to supplement the main 450 seater screen and The Tent, as it has become known. There is a serious passion amongst everyone involved in putting it on to take this as big, and as far-reaching as it can, just like the music festival held on Lytham's promenade every July has done since 2015.

All of these chats have prompted us here at TheJackSmit.com to start developing a very special little strand, which we'll reveal more about once submissions open for next year's festival - that hashtag in the Journal is a small hint as to what it's called...

Submissions for LYIFF 2025 open on FilmFreeway.com/LYIFF on September 1st.

[unsafescapewolf]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

News spreads fast.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[tzarrz]

i listen to fog lake too much

[vhb3artstuffs]

eepy

[nonas-third-tantrum]

modern au where nona makes a powerpoint hoping to convince camilla to let her get a dog

[tomboyyyaoi]

nightlight

[heartorbit]

catch us if you can! ☆

[aroaceleovaldez]

the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.

and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.

And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[niftukkun]

what a kangaroo court

[thejacksmit]

Projection Room: open for business at last - Prime Video, meet The Renata Road

Stills from The Renata Road courtesy of Beyond The Bar Ltd

Long-time readers of the blog - especially those who have been here from the UCLan days onwards - will likely remember a review of a film made here in the North West that for so long, has remained unreleased to those here in England. A film about a remote hotel where not all is as it seems, a film featuring a lead best known for his quizzing prowess back in the day on a certain BBC light entertainment programme, and a film that's been a real passion project for all involved in front of and behind the camera. That film is of course, Ed Greenberg's directorial debut, psychological thriller The Renata Road.

For the uninitiated, in 2016 I was told of the project through a friend of a friend in a foyer of a local cinema, as the print was being tested on actual projection/sound equipment, and before long, I was invited to an early preview screening of the film to write the first review - since then the blog's been on the ride with the Beyond The Bar team, through the highs and the lows of taking an independently made, crowdfunded film from script to screen, something I've seen more in depth with the film production students I got to shadow back in 2018/19. Obviously we can't reveal too much about the plot beyond what went in that original review - this is a film that has twists and turns at its core, but since the Kickstarter backers seen it, we've been a key part of the journey here at TheJackSmit.com - so much so that we're featured in the international trailer. But today is a day I've been very, very, very excited for, purely because I get to type these words:

The Renata Road is now available on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.

Since we last updated you all on the film in 2022 following its world premiere in LA, and the subsequent US streaming release on Valentines Day last year, Richard Albiston and his team at The Cannon Film Company have worked their magic alongside Beyond The Bar to bring this film home, and with the folks at Burning Bulb, at long last the Renata is truly open for business. The film is out, it's real, and now, at last, audiences can see it with their trusty Prime subscriptions.

Reading through the press kit, the film's director says it best: "there’s been an increasing demand from the public these past years for more challenging content; for stories that make you think and look beyond the surface-level narrative. Films that inspire discussion and interpretation". I hope audiences understand it as well as the two packed cinema screens I seen it with during the search for a distributor - as I said back then, it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it is a distinctly Northern film that gets you talking. Which, in essence, is what a good film should do. But while today is a day of celebration, there is a small amount of sadness as it would be wrong not to mention a key part of the Renata family who isn't here to see the big day - in 2019 production designer, set builder and all round top man Craig Priestley lost his battle with cancer. I had the honour of meeting him in the summer of 2018, playing many board games with him, and quite rightly, the film is dedicated to his memory. If anything, the last few years covering this film has shown how much of a family this industry can create.

A huge thanks to the teams at Beyond The Bar, The Cannon Film Company and all involved in the production of The Renata Road for their support in TheJackSmit.com coverage of the film over the years.

[anewp0tat0]

i lied i had like atleast one more weston thought to expell from my brain, before i miss this boat entirely. we're heading to green lands woooo

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

With the end of season two comes a second redraw!

[Nov 2022] [June 2023] [June 2024]

[spear-gsun]

Happy 20 years to the Imperishable Night

[onenightbreak]

do you think siffrin overheard someone talking about the craftology traits of piercing craft and just completely internalised it