Smirnoff Experience and The Hospital have announced the winners of the Smirnoff Experience Reel Talent Award.
The winning shorts - Heavy Metal Drummer, Love Letter and Take Me Back - premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London last week.
They will also be screened at the London Film Festival(19 October - 3 November) and Bristol's Brief Encounters (23 - 27 November). The films will also be submitted to a series of prestigious international film festivals including Cannes, BAFTA, Sundance, TCM, Aspen, Rotterdam, Hamburg and have been offered international distribution deals by Shorts International.
Heavy Metal Drummer, written, directed and produced by Luke Morris and Toby MacDonald, is a celebration of rock music in the Arab world and a portrait of a music fan on a quest to reconcile his love for heavy metal music with a disapproving world. The story was inspired by the true story of the arrest of fourteen metalheads in Casablanca. Macdonald and Morris are no strangers to awards – their 2001 short Je T’aime John Wayne received critical acclaim and a Bafta nomination and went on to win an award at the European Film Awards.
Love Letter, written and directed by Richard Fenwick and produced by Hayley Manning, tells the story of a lovesick boy called Craig (Daniel Appleby) who eventually plucks up the courage to give the girl of his dreams (Jaime Winstone) a love letter, only for fate to conspire against him. Richard’s previous films include Cherry, as well as music videos for Timo Maas, Death in Vegas, Bent, Teenage Fan Club and Funeral for a Friend.
Take Me Back, written and directed by Jonty Kenton and produced by Andy Hui, is a story about a boy called Charlie who plays records to a girl called Myra in order to help her recover from amnesia and remind her of their relationship. As the memories start coming back, however, not everything is quite how it seems.
