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20 Somersault
December 2011
(RE)LAUNCH OF THE LONDON FILM SOCIETY In October this year, LFS Chairman Mike Leigh and Director Ben Gibson unveiled a new programme aimed at raising vital funds for LFS. Inspired by Britain’s first Film Society founded in 1925, whose members included H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Maynard Keynes and Anthony Asquith, the Society is enrolling influential patrons to play a crucial role in supporting the work of the
A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SPONSORS AND PARTNERS
LFS director, Ben Gibson, said: “The London Film Society is the first step in a longer-term strategy to
secure the future of the school. It’s a chance for us to reach out and form relationships with key individuals and organisations that can help us maintain our position as a world-class training provider. Society members are making a direct stand for LFS’ role within the industry.” Current Society members are: David Aukin, Don Boyd, Dan Chambers, Will Clarke, Tony and Janey Elliott, Stephen Garrett, Keith Greenhalgh, Goodman Derrick LLP, Christo Hird, Olivier Kaempfer, Paul Kafka, Waseem Mahmood OBE, Franc Roddam, Lisa Marie Russo and Michael Sackler. Membership is available on an individual or corporate basis. For more information, please email Cecilia Sala at c.sala@lfs.org.uk
LOW BUDGET FILM FORUM en route to Paris (page 6)
WAVING NOT DROWNING at the Berlinale (page 6)
THE LONDON FILM SOCIETY Join the Club (page 20)
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School and the next generation of cinematic talent. In return for a yearly donation to LFS, members will enjoy unrivalled behindthe-scenes access to the inner workings of the School including invitations to exclusive workshops, screenings, dinners and discussions.
SPEAKEASY celebrates second year (page 5)
ISSUE TWO ANNUAL REVIEW OF THE LONDON FILM SCHOOL - DECEMBER 2011
BBFC 2D Design Avid Barbican Birkbeck Buzzacott Copious Deluxe Soho ENO Essex Insurance Brokers Fisher Harbottle and Lewis Image Systems
Institut Francais Kodak London Metropolitan University Panalux Panavision Pinsent Masons RADA The Leathersellers’ Company The London Consortium The National Gallery Watchmaker Films Wickens
Designed by Mike Leedham, 2D Design. Edited by Kate Hughes. Printed by Gemini Press. Writers Joanna Bence, Nick Roddick, Camilla Bubna-Kasteliz, Archie Tait, Suzy Gillett, Margaret Glover, Andrea Corbett, Brian Dunnigan. With thanks to Carolyn Atherton, Alex Duxbury, Moshe Nitzani, John Sibley, Chi Yu, Rachael Stevens, Heather Thomas, Cecilia Sala, Jaime Estrada-Torres, Louise Lawrence and all the graduating students and LFS staff. Thanks also to Lee Riley and Jon Sheldon at The National Gallery, The Soho Theatre, and all the companies that donated to our graduate goody bags (Variety, Screen International, Hollywood Reporter, BFI, Kodak, Little White Lies, STA Travel, Channel4)
REAL WORLD TRAINING Welcome to our celebration of a year’s work at LFS, and of an extraordinary group whose professional adventures begin here: the class of 2011. On graduation day LFS used to mainly content itself with boasting about our many prizes at short film festivals (this year 30 from over 150 fests, see FESTIVAL NEWS on page 3). Of course they are very important moments for these filmmakers, but what comes next? Since 2005, we’ve been looking more closely at how careers actually begin, at the journey through to the first paid jobs and the first features. On the following page you’ll
see an account of several of the 25 known first features recent LFS graduates have made and released over the past year in the US, Asia, Europe and the UK. Somewhere just before the first short film festival booking comes the sobering moment when a new LFS Associate begins their career planning in earnest. They need to research the growing network they’ll require, to address the skill gaps they feel most keenly after two or three years of filmmaking, the ones that matter most to them. Then, through research, letter-writing, creating showreels, attending festivals, one to one meetings, fundraising and often pure self-promotion, they
inch closer to the goal of paid employment for creative work in film and television. Rather than looking for a specific job, this person is often inventing the job they need to do and then discovering the economic niche that might support it. Sometimes they have a key link to the industry in their past, and they have to use this link while persuading their former colleagues that they don’t just want to take up where they left off but to make new ambitions happen, stage by stage. In the background of all this work - learning to be one’s own agent - LFS tutors are penning letters of introduction, advising on showreel
A message from Mike Leigh in Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kyrgystan, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Taiwan and the Western Sahara - as well as here in the UK, of course! LFS continues to thrive on the creative richness and the diversity of its international student community. This, together with its role as one of the UK’s two major film schools, is one of our great traditions. Throughout the world, you will find filmmakers and workers in the other media who spent those magical two action-packed years in our ex-banana warehouse in Covent Garden, or in one of the school’s earlier homes, in Brixton or at Charlotte Street.
Here we are again, celebrating an exciting year at LFS - our fifty-fifth, in fact! Over one hundred and fifty festivals world-wide have screened our work over these last twelve months, and LFS films have been awarded no less than thirty First Prizes. Our graduate features and documentaries were shot by LFS crews To all of you alumni and
Associates out there, dotted around the globe, I want to tell you that your old alma mater goes from strength to strength. But we need to raise funds, and plenty of them. We want to increase considerably the number of our scholarships, making our courses even more widely accessible. Money needs to be spent on vital new facilities, and we are now embarking on our longer-term fundraising campaign to ensure the future of the school when our current lease on Shelton Street finally expires. Your practical help with all this is really important. Finally, our warmest thanks to all our friends and industry partners who have supported us over the last year. We need your continuing support, and we much appreciate it.
cuts and CV styles and bringing together Associate networks in foreign cities from Los Angeles to Beijing to support new arrivals. The school’s so-called ‘bridge programmes’ from HOTHOUSE to the European network schemes, THE LOW BUDGET FILM FORUM and MAKING WAVES, in partnership with other film schools, are there to support the work and continue the learning. In the UK Skillset has supported both HOTHOUSE and an industry mentoring scheme for graduating students which makes a huge difference to the industry knowledge and selfconfidence of graduates. Institutions like the Berlinale Talent Campus, the Cannes Cinefondation Residences, the Mauritz Binger Institute and the Sundance Workshops help develop many LFS graduates in the terrifying space from school to work. The school keeps up with its recent graduates because their working relationships with tutors persist, and they use the LFS WORKSHOPS offerings to top up. LFS students start the journey to work with a class called THE JOB CLUB, where they’re asked to present a 5 year career strategy for discussion with their classmates. Generally they’re also asked to say what they still want to learn and who they must meet. We put an emphasis on the continuity of learning, partly because the people they meet see their careers that way. They don’t ‘arrive’ anywhere, but keep exploring, lead by a sense that there’s much more to know. The surprisingly simple-minded life structure of these creatively ambitious role models could be said to consist of just two stages: discovery followed eventually by death. Not a bad plan.
On The Edge, directed by Sohail Kamali, one of 42 LFS graduation films produced this year (see page 7).
UK FILM POLICY
24 SHELTON STREET LONDON WC2H 9UB U.K. EMAIL: info@lfs.org.uk
Alongside our graduating Filmmakers, Screenwriters and Curators, today we honour three individuals who have made great contributions to our culture and industry. Through slumps and renaissances, UK cinema has survived and excelled because of the energy, optimism and originality of the indefatigable – a fitting word to bring together three people who have taught us so much about the potential of cinema: the director, Richard Lester, the actor, Rita Tushingham and the critic and historian, Philip French.
Every major ambition of the UK Government’s 2011 Film Policy Review can be directly addressed by creating better provision of spaces, scholarships, and equipment at LFS and we’ve made that bid to government in 2011. Inward investment into the UK industry, keeping up-to-date with emerging technologies, discovering and supporting new and diverse talent and building support amongst the UK public for more and better UK films, are all key ambitions of LFS. The full text of the school’s public response can be found on the website. Ben Gibson
THE LONDON FILM SCHOOL TELEPHONE: +44 (0)20 7836 9642
UK GREATS
lfs.org.uk