A Brace of Awards for Breakfast ...

I have just returned home from the closing night screenings of the Stratford-upon-Avon International Digital Film Festival. Over four days they have screened the best of independent digital film from all over the world. The closing offerings were One Last Drink Before Morning (UK), Fission (USA), Her Smile (South Korea) and A Dog’s Breakfast (Canada)

The screening was held in a much larger room with a lot more people in attendance than on Thursday when I was last able to get over there. I took Sarah with me this time and we settled down to watch the programme which began a little after 7pm.

The short films where very enjoyable and varied:

One Last Drink Before Morning
Director: JD Kelleher
Cast: Gareth Kieran Jones, Lesley McGuire
A late night dive, three barflys and a competition for a free drink.
Whoever has the saddest story wins … for once in their life.

Fission
Animated Short
Director: Kun-I Chang
A man sees himself as graffiti on the wall.

Her Smile
Narrative Short
Director/Writer: Minji Kang
Cast: Chrystine Yeh, Lindsay Kojima, Shine Inn
A young prostitute yearns for love while working in the
red-light district of South Korea.

The main film of the evening was A Dog's Breakfast - and as I settled back to watch it for a second time in a week I counted myself as lucky to be one of the few people in the world to have had the privilege of viewing this movie. It was just as witty and amusing the second time around.

After the screenings we had some refreshments kindly provided by the Festival organisers and I had a chance to chat to JD Kelleher about his excellent short film One last Drink Before Morning

JD is seen here with Sarah who was made an honourary "Film Maker" and is wearing her badge with pride.

Then came the award presentations. The organisers gave a brief speech saying what a high standard of entries there had been to the Festival this year and explaining that the judging and selection of award winners had been done, not by them but, by an independent panel.

The first to be announced was for Best Actor and it was a thrill to hear that this had been awarded to David Hewlett.

His future father-in-law, Mr Don Loughman went up to accept the award in David's place. He explained how sorry David and Jane were not to be present at the Festival and thanked the organisers for doing such a good job. He mentioned how grateful David was to the 70 or so people who had worked on the movie to bring it to fruition.

But that was not the end of the film's success story because, just a few moments later, came the news that it had been awarded Best Feature Film. Fantastic news and well deserved recognition for a great film!



So Hurrah!! for ADB - may it continue to go from strength to strength,
and well done to David, Jane, Kate, Paul, Mars and all the cast and crew.

AMx