Reelfastfilm festival 2002
Madness and Filmmaking in 48 Hours

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48 Hours of Movie Making Hell
Write, make and edit a ten-minute movie in 48 hours for the chance of winning $1000. You’ll need a team of ten, video and sound equipment, a G4, enthusiasm and talent. Impossible?

Under the starting gun from Derick Cobden

On August 16th 58 teams of filmmakers hit the streets of Vancouver to make their movies in a race against time. Each film was screened at the Anza Club to capacity crowds and the best ten were premiered at ‘The Commodore Ballroom’ at a huge 1000 capacity party. This event is building a new community of filmmakers. The ReelFast 48Hour festival is run by Derick Cobden and Kathleeen Duborg with the aide of Christina Duborg, now in its fourth year, the best yet.

Some films are ambitious. Drew McCreadie drove up to Squamish and hired horses to make a Western called ‘Thrown’, a big hit at the screenings. Andy Thompson stands out as the down on his luck gambler. Rob Wenzek with 'Milk' made a horror thriller in his own home with Mike Northey, whilst the Michael Jackson team put together a fully blown 10 minute musical, ‘Frequency Zero’. The result was brilliant, with great singing perfomances from Sam Dulmage, Peter New, Laura Jaszcz, Anna Cummer.
Other notables were the scary ‘Shiver’ directed by Naill MacNiel- Richardson complete with special effects and ‘Feel Like Jumping’ a hilarious Hal Hartley style flick on suicide directed by Michael Howlett.
Last year Al Silverman won Best Picture for ‘My Face’ and CTV ZED bought the rights. This year he won Best Director for his funny film ‘Tennis with Dale Bradley’ starring Bro Gilbert. Best Editor ws Frerick Thorsen for 'Look' . Best Film was the wonderful 1920’s German silent pastiche ‘Tierheim’ written and directed by Jason Margolis starring Sara Hattingh, Shawn Bordoff, Ari Solomon, Johnny Caniveros and Stanley Katz. Best actor award went to Geoff Gustafson for 'Empire of Peasure' a funny movie about 'sex toy' parties. The Audience Choice award was of course ‘Frequency Zero’ with 'Thrown' a near tie.

Getting it in on time

It was a great event, both at the Anza Club in Vancouver that hosted the film screenings - everyone was supposed to leave after their film played but everyone wanted to see each others films and it was amazing to see such quality and ambition on screen hour after hour for two days.
The final screening in the Commodore Ballroom were just amazing with three big screens, big sound and a huge appreciative crowd. Some like' Feel Like Jumpin' didn't make the final ten, but all were agreed the choice was really hard and the winners well deserved.
Two stands outs?
Dickstein Knows directed by Bart Simpson and Silverback - a funny, but artful 'action' movie.

Silverback directed by Shane Geddes

A truly wonderful filmmaking event. Thanks Vancouver.

Next August it begins all over again.
http://www.reelfastfilms.com

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