PRESS RELEASE
FILMINUTE 2006 WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Public and Jury Votes for World’s Best One-Minute Films Revealed
16th October 2006
Filminute®, the international one-minute film festival, has announced the winners of its People’s Choice and Jury awards for 2006.
The jury award for Best Filminute 2006 was given to UK/Romanian director Anton Groves’ Line. With a universal narrative that is both allegorical and realistic at the same time, Line was noted by the jury for its unique sound design and sharp editing. The film artfully portrays a couple whose car sits in the path of an oncoming train in the seconds before impact. Line also generated the highest public rating with a score of 4.4 out of 5 stars. The film was described by jury member Raul Galvez of the Toronto International Latin Film Festival as “sharply edited and economically told, [with] all the ingredients, the tension, and the feeling of a good piece of dramatic work.”
UK Filmmaker and graphic designer Wayne Campbell has taken home the People’s Choice Award for It Could Be, his compelling and poetic one-minute documentary. The film takes on the issue of knife violence and is delivered as a spoken word plea interspersed with dramatisation of a knife-related crime. It Could Be is dedicated to Kiyan Prince, a 15-year-old London boy who was stabbed and died in May 2006 while breaking up a fight near his school.
Five films were also awarded commendations from the jury, noted for their relevant subject matter, narrative quirks, qualities of art and style, and ability to provoke extreme reactions from the audience. These films, which all generated vigorous debate, included The Human Coral (Michelle Coomber, UK), Charlie (Rob Hickling, Canada), Fortification (Elena Wen, USA), The Future Box (Morgan Christie, Australia), and The Bush Ghost (Seth Scriver, Canada).
The winning films were selected from a shortlist of 27 outstanding and diverse entries from around the world. All films were subject to both a public vote and a review by a respected international jury across the film, arts, literature, advertising and production industries.
In its first year, the Filminute website generated over half a million page views from audiences worldwide. The festival’s goal is to challenge filmmakers to create one-minute films that resonate beyond that one minute - a story with character and impact with the potential to evolve into a series of one-minute films, a broadband or broadcast series, or even into a feature film.
Jury member Ekow Eshun, artistic director of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, says that Filminute 2006 “demonstrated a high level of polish and a strong and exciting progression in user-generated content. Filminute has raised the bar in its first year and I am very interested to see how high the bar can go.”
“I’m very pleased that my instinct to explore a moment of extreme tension and finish it with an open ending paid off,” says Anton Groves, winner of the jury’s Best Filminute 2006. “I have to thank my crew and all those who visited the Filminute site. Hopefully this award and recognition by the jury and the public will enable me to make more films, one-minute and otherwise.”
“The quality of the competition was amazing,” says People’s Choice award winner Wayne Campbell. “I wanted to make a film that would challenge and hopefully make a difference. I feel like I have a public duty to try and change things. I wanted to make something with a meaning and a purpose... [The People’s Choice Award] is such an accolade and I feel it’s a sign for me to carry on making films.”
We will announce the jury's "Best Filminute" decision and the People's Choice award on October 16, 2006.Leading up to that announcement, we invite the public to continue to view, comment, rate, and vote for their favourite one-minute film. As we have said from the beginning, "make every moment count."
- John Ketchum, Head of Filminute 2006 Jury; Executive Director, Filminute.
- Ekow Eshun, Artistic Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts (London)
- Craig Davis, Chief Creative Officer, JWT Worldwide
- Raul Galvez, Founder of the Toronto International Latin Film Festival.
- Santa Maddalena Foundation, under the leadership of Beatrice Monti della Corte von Rezzori, will occupy 2 of the 7 seats on the Filminute 2006 jury. One vote will be from the literature side, the other from the film side. Input to the Santa Maddalena vote will come from the Foundation's Board of Directors, Selection Committee, Board of Advisors and Fellows. This input will include Oscar, Pulitzer, and Booker Prize winners. Santa Maddalena luminaries include: Bernardo Bertolucci, Volker Schlöndorff, Colm Toibin, Michael Cunningham, Zadie Smith, Isabella Rossellini.
- Sabaa Quao, Executive Director, Filminute
With 6 out of the 27 shortlisted films being Romanian productions or co-productions, the response to Filminute in Romania has been passionate.
A feature article appears this week at OneToOne (www.121.ro). The article is in Romanian however some highlights from the article loosely translate as follows:
- A festival to which all countries can participate without borders or difficult acceptance conditions!
- The accessibility of these one-minute films is truly a good idea. You can watch and rewatch your favourite films. You can comment and vote for the films that are dear to you. Everything on one site and with a mechanism you can easily learn!
- Filminute is truly an exceptional project worth watching and debating! If you have a moment of pause or relaxation or a good disposition and you want to spend it in an excellent way, I invite you to give your opinion about www.filminute.com
I’m honoured to head up the jury for this inaugural Filminute International One-Minute Film Festival. My fellow jurors represent voices from the forefront of contemporary art, film, literature and advertising. I look forward to their insights and input determining which films stand out from an impressive shortlist of 27. Audiences will be entertained, amazed, and inspired by the selection of films on the Filminute 2006 shortlist. These chosen submissions represent the best of a very contemporary and relevant one-minute format.John Ketchum, Executive Director, Filminute®
Head of Jury
SEE: Filminute
What: Screen and vote for your favorite one-minute films in this jazzy festival.
Why: Gone in 60 seconds.
When: Thru Sept. 30.
Where: Online at filminute.com.
* DailyCandy.com, Everywhere Edition, "The Weekend Guide." Retrieved September 7, 2006, from http://www.dailycandy.com/article.jsp?ArticleId=27026&city=4
We've upgraded our web site server to handle the volume of hits to the Filminute site. The transition did, however, disrupt some pages on our site over the past 24 hours.If you are having trouble reaching us from the submission form, please do email us at info@filminute.com. We apologise for any inconvenience.The announcement of the films shortlisted for Filminute 2006 is days away. Stay tuned.
A one-minute film is short enough to enable a wide range of creative people to deliver a high quality production. At the same time, one minute is long enough to require some inventiveness and resourcefulness in storytelling and production methods to complete the challenge.Every week, we hear of some inspiring backstory on one-minute filmmaking — anecdotes from filmmakers begging, borrowing or stealing just what they needed to complete their Filminute submission to a jury-worthy standard.
Highlights: extensive us of Skype, local and international collaborations between creative disciplines, scraping together ends of filmstock by every means necessary, piggybacking on other productions, and all manner of ways of securing locations for free (eg. an airport!).
There's also a story about use of a mechanical bird...definitely cheaper than hiring a bird wrangler.
"In a one-minute film, there's time to establish a narrative and character, and then kick it with at least one compelling twist. A one-minute film is more than just a visual amuse bouche."
— Steve Angel, Founder Head Gear Animation, the company behind the 3 demonstration one-minute films on the FILMINUTE site.
Filminute is looking for the best one-minute films from around the world, films with compelling narratives that provoke thought, emotion, reaction and action. These are the films that will resonate beyond one-minute, that will provide the ideas, themes and characters with room to grow into serial pieces, short films, TV shows – even feature films.
One example we have shared often is the development of South Park, which started off as a short made from “construction paper, glue, and a very old 8 mm film camera.” * That short got noticed by an executive at Fox, who commissioned Matt Stone and Trey Parker to develop an animated Christmas card (‘Spirit of Christmas’).
The card’s success led to Stone and Parker being hired to bring South Park to life on television in 1997, and two years later on the big screen with South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.What Filminute points out is that the first piece was short, lean, broadcast quality, and featured characters and a narrative that captivated and engaged an audience. The best one-minute films will have a life that goes far beyond Filminute.
* The Spirit of Christmas. (2006, August 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:16, August 8, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Spirit_of_Christmas&oldid=68346065.
Filminute's jurors represent the worlds of Contemporary Art, Film, Literature, and Advertising and include Oscar, Booker, Pulitzer, and Clio award winners. Filminute will also be inviting voters from over 100 countries to vote on the shortlisted films throughout September 2006.Filmmakers, writers, producers, art directors, designers, and artists, we are looking to find the "Best Filminute" from an international pool of entries. Submissions are due by August 31, 2006.FILMINUTE // Make every moment count
"One of the key differences between video art and theatrical cinema is that video art does not necessarily rely on many of the conventions that define theatrical cinema."
Video art. (2006, July 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:32, July 31, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_art&oldid=66702465.
The intent of the video artist outside the conventions of narrative film will lead to creative discoveries. Filminute asks video artists to bring these same discoveries and surprises back into the narrative realm, and to provoke and enrich the emerging genre of one-minute films.
Filminute's "By Invitation" partnership and collaboration with Avail Video considerably expands our festival's call for entries to a large community of video artists. We expect some of these submissions to be as likely contenders for "Best Filminute" as the works from conventional filmmakers, videographers, advertising art directors, designers, animators, and writers.
The unusual suspects and the usual suspects are equally of interest to Filminute as we explore, challenge and grow the genre of one-minute films.
FILMINUTE, el Festival Internacional de Cine de Un minuto: El próximo 31 de Agosto concluye el plazo para el envio de trabajos audiovisuales de 1 minuto de duración para participar en el Filminute, iniciativa que pretende seleccionar los mejores trabajos procedentes de medio centenar de países destinada a profesionales y nuevas promesas en el sector audiovisual que pretendan llegar a una amplia audiencia a través de nuevas y/o tradicionales plataformas de comunicación. El proyecto FILMINUTE comenzó su andadura en marzo y está prevista la entrega de cuatro premios: Mejor Documento de Ficción, Documental, de Animación y Mejor Película de Fan. Para más información: John Ketchum, Sabaa Quao, Executive Directors, FILMINUTE, john.ketchum@gmail.com, Toronto, London, Bucharest +40721200626, www.filminute.com
Well-constructed narrative is a central topic of discussion as we review Filminute submissions. Great films are supported by great storytelling and this holds as true for a one-minute film as it does for a feature film.
We were delighted when the Santa Maddalena Foundation, and its founder Baronessa Beatrice Monti della Corte Von Rezzori, agreed to participate on the Filminute jury. By having a collection of some of this century’s most acclaimed writers judging and commenting on the final selection of Filminute submissions, we hope to strengthen the collective understanding around the importance of a good screenplay.
Filminute intends to elevate the expectations of both filmmakers and audiences regarding what they can expect from a great one-minute film. Here’s an inspiring last comment on great screenwriting: “On March 5, 2006, Paul (Haggis) became the first person in the history of the Academy Awards to write two back-to-back Best Picture winners, for Crash and the previous year's winner, Million Dollar Baby." http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0353673/Filminute is looking forward to discovering some back-to-back brilliant, narrative one-minute films. 
Ekow Eshun is the Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He is a contributor to BBC2's Friday night arts programme Newsnight Review and a former editor of Arena magazine. Filminute is pleased to announce that Ekow Eshun will participate as a member of the inaugural jury for Filminute 2006.
What makes a great film?
"A great film will turn light into solid. Film is intangible. It is not physical. But when we see a great film, a collection of flickering images turns into something real that lives inside people, stays with them, walks with them. With the greatest films, the random flickering images turn into myth.
Film is the most important art form of the modern era because it brings new beliefs along with it. While we may venerate film stars and the glamour of the film industry, beyond that we also take films into our body and into our world of understanding of hope, faith and belief.
For example, in any random order, let's say from King Kong to The Seventh Seal to Star Wars: with each of these films come new ways of understanding and experiencing the world. We change and expand because of these films in terms of our understanding of spirituality, war, death, love. An image, a set of ideas and ideals comes with a great film."
What makes a great one-minute film?
"A great one-minute film will last longer than a minute! Sometimes in a full-length film, you'll get one scene that resonates beyond the length of the full film. The one-minute film is the reverse of that; in one minute, a great one-minute film will capture an idea that stays with you far beyond one-minute.
The one-minute film is like a stained glass window: in one frame, in that one shot, you get the world."
As the Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and as a long-standing commentator on contemporary culture, what strikes you about Filminute?
"Filminute catches up with the pace of the world.
Most new initiatives tend to replicate what was. For instance, we see festival after festival starting up and they all tend to be repeating themselves. Here (with Filminute), we are acknowledging the way people communicate and entertain themselves -- it has changed. Filminute is keeping up with that change. It is not trying to replicate the past. Filminute's form tries to make sense of the present."
FILMINUTE® is an international one-minute film festival and competition that takes place in September 2006.
In March 2006, Filminute launched with a Call for Entry sent to creative individuals and communities in over 50 countries, ranging from filmmakers, writers, designers, and producers, to new media, animation and fine artists.
We are looking for people to make unusually good one-minute films, creative individuals and groups who will come at short form narratives, documentaries, animations and fan film mashups in uniquely interesting and engaging ways.
The launch site presents an overview of:
- the Filminute festival and competition,
- the categories up for contention,
- and 3 demonstration one-minute films from the portfolio of Head Gear Animation.
What makes a great film? What makes a great one-minute film?
www.filminute.com // make every moment count
