CORNWALL FILM FESTIVAL GETS FOCUSED

The 2009 Cornwall Film Festival team is in place, focusing on the eighth consecutive celebration of Cornish and international filmmaking. Scheduled for 13-15 November, this year’s festival will be held in a new venue, the recently opened Phoenix Cinema, in the heart of Falmouth. 

 

Board Shorts, the UK’s only mini-festival dedicated to surf filmmaking, will take place the week before, on Saturday, 7 November,at the Stannary Bar on the Tremough campus of UCF. 

 

Heading up the team is newly appointed director Donna Anton, who also serves as chair of the British Federation of Film Societies. She is joined by festival assistant Tiffany Holmes and intern Marion Monnier. Coordination will be overseen by Falmouth-based Event Cornwall, led by principal Clare Hearn.

 

As always, the festival weekend will offer a diverse array of submissions by filmmakers and students resident in Cornwall. Screen Actions, the young persons festival run by and for 8- to 18-year-olds, will take place Friday, 13 November. The annual Govyn Kernewek award, a £5,000 commission for the best film proposal to be made in the Cornish language, will be announced following the premiere screening of last year’s winner, “Skath” (Cornish for gig), by Paul Farmer. And the enormously popular Big Pitcher bidding event for £100 prizes will be back for its fourth frenetic year.

 

Planned highlights for the 2009 festival will include a number of South West feature film premieres and invited VIPs; a special presentation of the blockbuster climate-change film “The Age of Stupid,” just ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen; the final vote for the second annual Another Country International Short Film award; and a visiting delegation and programme of short films from this year’s Budapest BuSho Short Film Festival.

 

Tributes during the festival will honour the memory of past director Laura Hardman and of executive producer Simon Channing Williams, whose untimely deaths earlier in the year were a huge loss for the local filmmaking community.

 

A registered charity, the Cornwall Film Festival is largely funded by grants and sponsorships, which recognise the festival’s dual ideals of supporting and nurturing Cornwall-based film production and talent, and promoting Cornish cultural heritage through visual media.

 

“The fact that this year’s festival is business as usual, despite the huge challenges thrown at us by the recession,” said Ben Read, festival chair, “is a testament to the passion of filmmakers and film enthusiasts across Cornwall – and to the generosity of our loyal sponsors, to whom we are most grateful.”

 

Tickets for the festival will go on sale in October. For more information, email info@cornwallfilmfestival.com.

 

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Note to editor: The Cornwall Film Festival is an annual celebration of Cornish and international filmmaking, now in its eighth year. The Festival offers local and national premieres, professional development workshops, lectures and parties providing the opportunity to network with the UK’s leading industry professionals. The Cornwall Film Festival is a registered charity (charity no. 1126161).

 

 

 

 

Donna Anton

 

Tiffany Holmes

 

Marion Monnier