Festival goes to great lengths to promote shorts

Media Release Dated: Friday 5 June, 2009

Film festival goes to great lengths to promote shorts

Since its inception in 2006, the Show Me Shorts Film Festival has showcased top new Kiwi and Australian short filmmaking talent. Each year the festival receives hundreds of entries and selects 40 of the best films to screen throughout New Zealand and contend for Show Me Shorts awards.

Many of these films go on to further success after screening at Show Me Shorts. Last year’s films ‘One Shoe Short’ and ‘Lovers Walk’ for example won awards last week at the St Kilda Short Film Festival in Melbourne, and ‘Betty Banned Sweets’ is screening in Edinburgh later this month. Show Me Shorts provides filmmakers with a rare opportunity to have their short films screened in cinemas and allows audiences to see a wide range of short films that demonstrate the breadth and skill of local filmmaking talent.

“I’m consistently amazed at the quality and originality of the short films entered in the festival,” says Festival Director Gina Dellabarca. “Last year’s selection covered just about every genre imaginable from comedy to horror to docu-mation, and judging by the entries we’ve received already we’re looking forward to an equally diverse and interesting range of films this year.”

The festival kicks off with an awards evening in Auckland on November 5 and goes on to play at cinemas all over the country including Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch as well as smaller towns such as Arrowtown, Whitianga and Matakana. Awards will be made in 8 categories including Best Film, StarNow.com Best Actor, SDGNZ Best Director and NZ Writers Guild Best Screen Play.

This year, Show Me Shorts will further extend the festival programme, providing workshops for short-filmmakers. A half-day workshop will be held during the first weekend of the festival in Auckland and Wellington and will consist of a script development workshop followed by a ‘work in progress’ screening and feedback session.

Filmmakers who would like to submit a film for the ‘work in progress’ workshop session have until July 6 to submit a film treatment and script. July 6 is also the deadline for submitting films for entry in the festival and organisers hope to receive more entries than ever this year.

For information on how to enter a film in the Show Me Shorts festival or to find out more about workshops and screenings visit www.showmeshorts.co.nz.

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