Wheatley-born filmmaker among winners of Cannes competition

WHEATLEY — David Ross, a Wheatley-born film maker, and his team from Eagle Vision, were the only Canadian finalists in the annual Straight 8 Film Festival, which has been screened at Cannes since 2003.

The challenge of the competition is to shoot a short movie using just one roll of Super 8 film, with no editing or post production.

Ross’s film is called Total Control, a silent film style comedy that begins with a girl wishing over her birthday cake to have total control over adults.

The three-minute film follows her as she commands numerous family members to mimic her every move.

There were more than 200 entries to this year’s Straight 8 Festival, and a juried committee whittled it down to eight top winners from across the globe. The films were screened online only this year, due to COVID-19.

Normally, they would have made the trek to Cannes, but COVID-19 kept them home. Instead they were able to accept their award and watch the screening back in June, via the internet.

You can view the film by going to www.straight8.net and watching the promo for the eight winners.