Our Two-Minute Film Festival was born out of a desire to provide socially-distant performance opportunities during the dark days of COVID lockdowns. As we say farewell to our Year 13s, it fills me with pride that no fewer than four former Roscar winners are going on to study film at university or film school.
I’m no less proud of this year’s award winners, announced as part of this year’s Performing Arts Weekend – the combination of creativity and technical proficiency on display is fantastic. This year, I wanted to champion the smartphone as a powerful creative tool. When I started making films many years ago, I couldn’t have imagined the ability to shoot, edit and distribute films from a pocket-sized device.
However, back in 1926, it seems Nikola Tesla did:
“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”
To celebrate Tesla’s incredible foresight, this year’s festival had three essential criteria. Films had to include:
- LINE OF DIALOGUE: “I don’t care that they stole my idea . . . I care that they don’t have any of their own.”
- OBJECT: a remote control
- CHARACTER: an inventor
Five ROSCARs were awarded, but special mention should go to Maria-Clara Laucas who, despite having left us last year to return to Brazil, made this year’s festival another international affair with this fantastic film, ‘MEMÓRIAS APAGADAS’.https://vimeo.com/842508396?share=copy
With no further ado, here are this year’s winning entries:
