2016 Festival | indielincs

EYES ON SCREEN - FESTIVAL REVIEW 2016

"The INDIE-LINCS Film Festival 2016 has been and gone, and what a fantastic start to the new annual film festival it was! With filmmakers running workshops, Q and A’s and of course plenty of film screenings, it was a jam-packed weekend indeed at The Lincoln Performing Arts Centre.

A total of 30 films were shown over the course of the inaugural two days, with a varied selection of genres. Amongst the shortlisted titles were brooding indie dramas, darkly entertaining comedies and warm-hearted love stories, but every film shown at INDIE LINCS had one thing in common; they were all low or micro budget productions. Championing films made on a shoestring is obviously this festivals speciality.

The festival kicked off with a selection of splendid short films, followed by the first feature film screening of the weekend; Completely Normal (USA). A line up of documentary films followed that included a Q & A with all of the film-makers. The day went on with a selection of more shorts and features, finishing off with a screening of Steve Oram’s directorial debut AAAAAAAAH! (UK). With lots of laughs from the audience throughout the screening, this strange comedy was a big hit at the festival. Oram’s Q & A afterwards was also hugely entertaining and was an insightful success story of a low budget British production. Friday culminated with a Networking event in the Tower Bar on the University of Lincoln campus.

Saturday’s highlights included a filmmakers breakfast in Lincoln town centre at Café Portico, and later in the day a panel of filmmakers screening their features at the festival, discussed making micro budget feature films. John McPhail, director of Where Do We Go From Here? (UK) and The Hamill Brothers, the filmmakers behind The Wrong Floor (UK) chatted about the trials and successes of making their respective films. Other stand out screenings of the day included a varied assortment of international shorts, including Black Dream (Austraila), Hole (UK) and Director's Cut (Spain).

Amongst the wide variety of films screened over the two days, a shortlist was made of nominations for The INDIE-LINCS ‘IMP’ awards. The BIG IMP for Best Feature Film included nominations for Nekro (Turkey), Peter The 3rd (Israel) and Where Do We Go From Here? (UK). The winning prize however was awarded to the reflexive indie feature, Demning (Norway). Other award winners at the festival included The LITTLE IMP for Best UK Short awarded to Everyday is Like Sundae (UK), The LITTLE IMP for Best International Short awarded to Scrabble (Switzerland), and The BABY IMP for Best Student Short awarded to the team behind SUDS (UK). The ANGRY IMP for Most Challenging Film was awarded to the feature Nekro (Turkey) for its portrayal of a man falling in love with a corpse; without doubt a film that the audience at INDIE-LINCS 2016 will remember for a long time to come. Last but not least, The THESPIAN IMP for Best Actor was awarded to Jorgen Hausberg Nilsen, for his incredible performance in the winning feature Demning (Tunge, P. Norway). All of the films screened over the weekend deserve recognition for being truly fantastic examples of low and micro budget productions. It is no easy task to make a micro-budget film, but the selection of features and shorts at INDIE-LINCS this year showed incredible production values and story telling. These films thrived at INDIE-LINCS 2016 and all of us here at Eyes On Screen await next year’s festival with eager anticipation…"

Written by BEN REYNOLDS