Non sequitur...

Yes, today's post has absolutely nothing to do with one-minute films. It's World Cup! We will be happily distracted for the next few weeks. But remember... the ★ August 20 ★ submission deadline still stands! Perhaps some winning performances by your favourite teams will inspire you to making an even greater one-minute film. Make every moment count!

Audiences from 122 Countries

Each year, we scrutinise our site stats for insights about our audiences. Filminute 2009 attracted viewers from 122 countries during the festival month of September. However, 85% of our audience was generated by 10 countries: Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom, United States.

The audience numbers are certainly influenced by the countries represented on the shortlist however this does not necessarily determine the outcome of the People's Choice Award.

The footrace to win the People's Choice Award is often dramatic (and part of the entertainment for those of us managing the backend operation of the festival). The top films consistently generate views and votes far beyond their national origins. People rate and vote for the story, and that's the kind of sincere audience participation Filminute encourages and generates.

And the winners are...

PRESS RELEASE 8 OCT 2009
UK, CANADA, AND ITALY TAKE TOP AWARDS AT FILMINUTE 2009
Great stories, special effects, and even Twitter have an effect in determining the winners at Filminute, the international one-minute film festival.

Watch the winners now: http://www.filminute.com
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TEXT VERSION OF PRESS RELEASE
UK, CANADA, AND ITALY TAKE TOP AWARDS AT FILMINUTE 2009
Great stories, special effects, and even Twitter have an effect in determining the winners at Filminute, the international one-minute film festival.

LONDON/BUCHAREST, October 8, 2009 - After a month of screenings by audiences in over 120 countries, Filminute announced the 2009 award winners today. UK film THE BLACK HOLE, a highly imaginative story about greed, took home BEST FILMINUTE honours from the seven-member international jury, while LIFE, the first-ever Twitter-lit screenplay adaptation, won the popular vote for the People's Choice Award. The top-rated film was SUN-DAY, a haunting recollection of a young life, with 4.8 stars out of a possible 5.

THE BLACK HOLE, by directors Phil Sansom and Olly Wiliams, features masterful direction and a brilliant performance from UK actor Napolean Ryan who plays an office worker that discovers a photocopied piece of paper with a black hole. He then sets about using the black hole in ways that too aptly display the darker side of human nature - paralleling the behaviours responsible for our current economic crisis. It's a classic tale, and a perfect one-minute parable for our times.

“THE BLACK HOLE truly is a great one-minute film,” says John Ketchum, Filminute co-founder and head of jury. “From the originality and timeliness of the idea, through to the brilliance of the acting, the power of the sound design, and the deft use of special effects, this film made every moment count.”

The Filminute 2009 jury comprised Pamela Biénzobas, a Chilean critic and journalist based in France and Vice-President of FIPRESCI; designer and filmmaker Hillman Curtis; Tham Khai Meng, Worldwide Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather; Grammy award-winning graphic designer and typographer Stefan Sagmeister; London-based, award-winning Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie; and Ketchum and his Filminute co-founder Sabaa Quao.

The Filminute 2009 Jury awarded commendations to:

THE GOATS, directed by Razvan Parlog, ROMANIA
????? / HELL, directed by David OReilly, IRELAND/GERMANY
ELVIRA AT LORO RIVER, directed by Jose Villafañe, ARGENTINA
FIVE FOOT TEN, directed by Matthew Taylor, CANADA
HOW DO YOU DO, directed by Gabriel Achim, ROMANIA

“One look at the Jury Commendation list tells you that a number of films could easily have taken Best Filminute honours this year. It reflects the growing popularity of the format amongst professional and leading-edge filmmakers and artists who appreciate the challenge, reach, and quality of the festival,” says Quao. “So many of this year's films beg second and third viewings and resonate long after the final note. These films are remarkable works.”

This year's award-winners were selected from a lineup of 25 films from 13 countries. The shortlist of 25 was narrowed from a field of more than 2000 films, animations, and mashups. The People's

Choice award was determined by the Filminute audience with votes coming from 122 countries - and the formidable Twitter nation arguably representing a 123rd country.

This year has seen Twitter and Facebook play a key role, not only for the Filminute community, but for the filmmakers as well. Canadian director James Cooper adapted LIFE from a story by popular Twitter fiction writer Arjun Basu. LIFE dares to explore the central question of our existence - in one minute - and features art direction that cheekily plays with special effects to the delight of the average viewer as well as film insiders. To win the People's Choice, LIFE beat out a very strong challenge from the Romanian film HOW DO YOU DO, with SUN-DAY (Italy), KRONKELS (Belgium) and SILENCES (India) rounding out the top five.

The highest-rated film of Filminute 2009 was SUN-DAY by Italian director Pantaleone A. Megna. Original black and white camerawork and a haunting soundtrack heighten Vincent Gambino's portrayal of a young man reflecting back on the circumstances that have brought him to the netherworld he now inhabits.

Founded in 2006 by John Ketchum and Sabaa Quao, Filminute is a unique and truly international film festival run by staffers in Bucharest, London, Toronto, Vancouver, Panama, and Buenos Aires. Filminute has vaulted past its online beginning and become a truly cross-platform media and entertainment property through its physical events and mobile applications, including this year's popular iPhone-enabled version of the site (www.m.filminute.com).

Worldwide streaming of the films was provided by Limelight Networks, one of the world's most robust content delivery networks. The marquee screening venue was in Toronto, Canada, this year, at a gala evening held at the Royal Ontario Museum. The sold-out, $500-a-ticket fundraiser for the museum's Institute For Contemporary Culture had the audience screening, rating, and voting on the films. The evening was capped with an exclusive preview of the Vanity Fair portraits exhibition. Interestingly, THE BLACK HOLE was voted as the audience favourite that evening.

Ketchum and Quao also give special thanks to all of Filminute's sponsors and media partners, which include Limelight Networks, EYE WEEKLY, Cinemagia, and Mobile Mondays (Buenos Aires and Italy chapters).

The winning films and the complete Filminute shortlist can be viewed at www.filminute.com and on iPhone at www.m.filminute.com

Five Filminute Facts

• A worldwide audience from a record 122 countries watched one-minute films and related content at Filminute.com and partner sites.

• Traffic to www.filminute.com from the continents was measured as follows: 73% Europe; 20% North America; 5% Asia; 2% Australia and Africa.

• Top 10 One-Minute Film Fanatical Countries: 1-Romania; 2-Italy; 3-USA; 4-Canada; 5-United Kingdom; 6-Belgium; 7-India; 8-France; 9-Germany; 10-Australia

• During the festival month, 15% of all traffic to the Filminute site was driven by Facebook and Twitter.

• During the festival month of September, the most popular time of day to watch one-minute films was between noon and 1pm GMT, on a Wednesday.

http://www.filminute.com and m.filminute.com for iPhone

- END -

Recent campaigns for m.filminute.com for iPhone

Filminute PREVIEW video

Filminute 2009 Showreel from Filminute on Vimeo.

Prior Press Release (Filminute on iPhone)

Prior Press Release (13 Countries)

Filminute Festival, Publicat la data de 24.09.2009 on 121.ro

Filminute Co-founder and head of Jury wrote a recent article for 121.ro Here's the English translation.

One of the many great things about the digital age is how it dramatically increases people’s accessibility to a variety of arts, both as audience and artist. As a budding filmmaker in the 90’s I got to experience this first hand when I shot a short documentary about the Sundance film festival with a simple, Hi8 consumer camera and then one week later watched it air on Canadian national television. Even two years prior to that I couldn’t have dreamed of such thing, because low-cost technology options like Hi8 didn’t exist and weren’t being accepted by conventional broadcasters.


Much of what I learned from that and other subsequent experiences with digital technology, played a big role the creation of Filminute, the international one-minute film festival we launched in 2006 with partners from the filmmaking, design and communications industry. With digital technologies far advanced from where they were in the late 90’s and YouTube freshly launched, we saw in one-minute films the opportunity to offer a format and a platform that would enable professional filmmakers and artists of all stripes and nationalities to showcase their storytelling talents on film to a respected international jury as well as a massive global audience. Four years in and the accessibility of the one-minute format has indeed proven itself with photographers, writers, actors and painters from all over the world joining the list of professional filmmakers who have been featured on Filminute’s annual and exclusive 25-film shortlist, a list that this year will reach audiences in more than 100 countries.


In addition to the range of artists that have successfully taken on the challenge, Filminute can also proudly point to the impressive role of female directors in the festival. In an industry, where an average of 7-10% of directors are women, Filminute can point to 25% of its 2009 shortlisted directors being female. It’s a very strong showing and also reflective of earlier successes by women at Filminute including the 2007 BEST FILMINUTE honours that went to Bulgarian director Kristina Groseva, and last year’s People’s Choice Award won by Hungarian female director Papai Pici.


Together with the wide variety of artists drawn to Filminute, the presence of so many women speaks to what’s possible when the barriers to entry are lowered and new technologies enable a challenging of the status quo.


Filminute’s annual international jury is also built to reflect the wide range of participating directors at Filminute, including women. This year we have award-winning Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie on the jury as well as Paris-based Chilean film journalist Pamela Bienzobas. In previous years we’ve had Cannes-awarded Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf as well the head of the German Film Critics Association, Andreea Dittgen. All of these women are leaders whose presence serves to inspire established as well as up-and-coming filmmakers – men and women.


The accessibility that Filminute inspires also applies to countries. Over 75 countries have submitted films to Filminute over the course of the first 4 years. The U.S, the UK, Canada and Germany are always present, reflecting the strength of the film industries in those countries. However, countries like Romania, Bulgaria, India and Russia are also strong players who have won top honours from the jury and public alike. I’m especially pleased with Romania, one of Filminute’s anchor cities along with Toronto and London. The quality and quantity of films from Romania is always amazing and this year can be seen in 5 incredible films on the 25-film shortlist. It’s all proof that in today’s digital, global culture, no country or gender has a monopoly on good storytelling.

I ❤ www.m.filminute.com #iPhone beta, part 3

I ❤ www.m.filminute.com #iPhone beta, part 2

:-)

I ❤ www.m.filminute.com #iPhone beta

Filminute's iPhone-centric beta site was put up this week. Some tweaks here and there, but generally was very smooth from the start. Thx go out to Mobiliciouz, our mobile development partners in Buenos Aires, our tech lead Dan in Bucharest, and our design team that built the Filminute.com site in Toronto

You can view, rate, and comment on the mobile site. However, to place your one vote for The People's Choice, award, please visit the main website.

www.m.filminute.com

@Filminute TweetStats

Top five words: Filminute, #1M, tr, film, RT.

I ❤ FILMINUTE

Women play too at Filminute

Women directors, or the lack thereof in the American studio system, has been a hot topic in the news recently. According to the New York Times ("See Any Similarities in These Directors?"), 93% of the approximately 85 live-action movies slated for 2009 release by the six biggest film companies - Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Brothers - were directed by men.

By contrast, female directors counted for 25% of the Filminute 2009 shortlist. We've always believed that one-minute films level the playing field, and Filminute hopes to continue to prove that point when it comes to the success of both women and men, of all global origins. We continue to insist that nobody has a monopoly on good stories.

Congratulations to Shizuka Kusayanagi, Britt Rayes, Emma Vanhille, Luana Visciglia, and Elena Wen for their submissions now in competition at Filminute 2009. And let's take a moment to again applaud Best Filminute 2007 winner Kristina Grozeva for GAME (Bulgaria), and People's Choice 2008 winner Pici Papai for Quick (Hungary).

Twitterの１つぶやきが短編映画になった

ある人の１つぶやきが映画になりました。

といっても長編物ではなく、つぶやきにぴったりの超短編映画です。

Arjun Basuさん（@arjunbasu）さんは毎日Twitterで1つぶやきのフィクションをつぶやいています。すなわち毎ストーリーが140文字で収まっています。たとえば、最新のつぶやきではこんなストーリーになっています、

Read full piece here.

(And if anyone can send us a translation, that'd be fab.)

Merci, Cyberpresse!

Lundi 7 Septembre 2009, 15h00
Cinéma minute, blogue de Jozef Siroka, Cyberpresse

Bon, c’est vrai que ce n’est pas trop fameux le Tweet-a-Thon de Kevin Smith. Je vous propose donc une autre activité virtuelle, bien plus satisfaisante celle-là. Le Filminute 2009, un festival de cinéma international en ligne qui se tient tout au long du mois de septembre.

La particularité de cet événement : toutes les oeuvres soumises ont une durée exacte de 60 secondes (d’autres règlements ici). La sélection cette année comprend 25 films; vous êtes invités à les coter et à les commenter.

Le gagnant de 2008 (photo) se trouve ici.

The Feel Good Film of the Year..., and other fine clichés

★★★★★ Everybody's a critic. We look forward to your comments on all 25 shortlisted films at Filminute 2009.

★ OR ★★ OR ★★★ OR ★★★★ OR ★★★★★ ?

★★★★★ Everybody's a critic. We look forward to your comments on all 25 shortlisted films at Filminute 2009.

Welcome to Filminute

Our mobile site and mobile campaigns will launch soon. Many thanks to our mobile development partners in Buenos Aires whom we'll introduce to you shortly. Stay tuned!

Cinemagia — media partners at Filminute 2009