Young People's Cornwall Film Festival 2004

The 2004 Cornwall Film Festival was hailed as a sell- out success, with director Mike Leigh paying compliment to Cornwall’s film industry during an interview following the premiere of his new film Vera Drake amongst a wealth of screenings, networking events, training opportunities and debates.

Once again a whole day of events was pitched particularly at young film makers o­n the Friday, supported by Creative Partnerships and Awen Productions in collaboration with the Festival. Designed to offer youngsters insights into the industry and to give them contact with professionals, it was also a day of celebration as the youngsters brought their own work to the Big Screen with showings of their ‘Screen Beats ’ music videos as well as three Cornwall ‘Bytesize ’ short films.

Hosted at Falmouth Arts Centre, the day kicked off with a showcase of new films by young Cornish film makers entitled New Shoots – New Routes..Introduced by Simon Harvey of o-region, talks and discussions then followed with professional writers, actors and filmmakers about their experiences and entry into the industry, with Q&A opportunities and networking time.

In the afternoon came the premiere of the ‘Screen Beats ’ short films by young people from Humphry Davy School, Camborne Science & Community College, the CPR Learning Space, Newquay Tretherras School, Bodmin College, Looe Community School and Saltash Community School. In a wonderful peer learning session, groups from each school introduced the work and afterwards answered questions about it from the other schools. Last, experienced (but still very young!) pop video director Neil Coxhill showed the young film makers some of his work and answered more questions to round off the session.

Members of Falmouth School’s film club worked with Penryn - based Oscha productions to shoot a documentary video of the Friday events that will be screened at the 2005 Festival and a DVD of the documentary is also to be circulated to school networks to encourage wider participation and collaboration between schools and the Film Festival.



flicKerNOW, the website for film and moving image information in Cornwall and the south west, launched its first phase at the Film Festival with the SHOOT photographic competition. Given the challenge to take the picture that best captured the essence of the Festival, SHOOT ’s winner George Green here gets the moment the Kernow Kick-Ass Kung Fu Kweens arrive to take their red-carpet screen premiere by storm! The runner up is Doug Dawson. Photographer Steve Tanner, who kindly judged the competition, says: “This image certainly captures some of the excitement and the energy of the festival. It’s also interesting because it reflects the fact that this film proposal won the Govynn Kernewek Commission, for a short film to be made in the Cornish language, at last year ’s Festival.”

Finally, and still in the midst of being set up in a partnership between Cornwall Film, The Works and Creative Partnerships, the new Young People ’s Film Festival Board is set to offer young people the chance to be more directly involved in the development of future Young People’s Film Festivals, including 2005 ’s event.

For more information about the Board you can contact Cass Dennis o­n 01872 275187.