Local student film makers make their mark at this year’s Cornwall Film Festival

University College Falmouth’s renowned BA(Hons) Film course will play a starring role in this year’s Cornwall Film Festival. Eight talented young filmmakers will have their films screened at the Festival with six having submitted entries for the Delabole Slate Best Student Film Audience Award. Trailers produced by current students to advertise Film at Falmouth will also be shown throughout the Festival. In addition, UCF will sponsor a series of workshops as well as a new award for 2008, the Another Country International Short Film Award.

Now in its seventh year, the Cornwall Film Festival, which takes place between 6 and 9 November, is an invaluable showcase for Cornish filmmakers where students, amateurs and industry professionals combine to demonstrate the county’s filmic diversity.

The six student films to feature in the Delabole Slate Best Student Film Audience Award screening, which will take place on Sunday 9 November from 11.30am at the Princess Pavilion in Falmouth, are Selected Personal Images by Tom Hepworth; Saving Cornwall’s Heritage by Sarah De Courcy; P.O.V by Michael Ellis; Falmouth Docks 2007 by Jack Bridger; Resolve by Edmund Fargher and The Balls by John Barton Milmo. The audience will be invited to vote for their favourite movie with the winner being announced at an awards ceremony later that evening.

30-second trailers made by current students to showcase the BA(Hons) Film course at Falmouth highlight the passion of the team at UCF for filmmaking as well as how a sound theoretical backbone and practical grounding is vital for any budding filmmaker. From learning how to operate highly technical specialist equipment to how a film is constructed, the adverts, designed to inspire prospective students, cover every aspect of the filmmaking art.

“We’re pleased to be able to sponsor so many of the events and it’s fantastic to have our students’ work screened alongside new films from Terence Davies and Fernando Meirelles,” said Course Leader of BA(Hons) Film, Karl Phillips. “In addition, the Festival offers the rare opportunity to meet and engage with a wide range of industry professionals, and I’m sure that students and Cornish film-makers alike will make the most of this prospect.”

A series of workshops hosted by some of the film industry’s most experienced filmmakers, television writers, producers, directors and commissioning editors will also be part of the Festival thanks to UCF’s sponsorship. Focusing on a range of fascinating subjects from making feature-length historical documentaries, writing for television and licensing music and image rights in film, to how to pitch to commissioning editors, elevate scripts into a visual form and tell stories on screen, the workshops will take place at National Maritime Museum Cornwall on Friday 7 and Sunday 9 November. UCF students will be entitled to a special entry fee of just £2 for each of these workshops on production of their student card.

The Another Country International Short Film Award, also sponsored by UCF, reflects the fact that this year’s Festival has been opened up to international filmmakers for the first time. In towns, villages and rural areas all over the world, filmmakers are producing films in all genres from the heart of the communities in which they live. These are the films that the award is all about and a cash prize of £1000 will be awarded to the maker of the winning film.

“University College Falmouth is delighted to be sponsoring this new international award because we feel it’s important that filmmakers operating outside the world’s major cities are encouraged to bring their voices centre-stage,” added Director of the School of Media, Paul Inman.

For further information about BA(Hons) Film at University College Falmouth, please visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/film; email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone 01326 213730.

For further information about the Cornwall Film Festival, please visit www.cornwall-film-festival.co.uk

University College Falmouth is part of the Cornwall Skillset Media Academy, which has been established as a centre of excellence in the design and delivery of practice-based media education and training.

It celebrates innovation and creativity through the close collaboration between education and business, building on strong existing partnerships of broadcasters, training organisations and media production companies.

In April 2008, University College Falmouth merged with Dartington College of Arts to create a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth’s expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington’s expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing.

The merger will pave the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall in 2012, creating a Higher Education institution unique to the South West.

University College Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

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For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792; or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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