Students from Film and Broadcast Production showcased their work at a BFI London screening as part of The Cass summer season.
Date: 24 July 2017
The Cass held its annual Final Cuts event on Tuesday 27 June at the BFI on London's Southbank, a celebration and screening of projects created by Film and Broadcast Production BA students.
This year's screening, which was attended by students, staff, casts and industry contacts, included 18 films, covering a wide range of genres from drama to comedy, dance to fantasy and music to experimental.
Dr Jeremy Collins, Head of Film & Broadcast Production, said: "The films screened today represent the culmination of three years of work and study at our Aldgate campus. The course helps to develop the students’ skills around film making and production, while also underpinning this with critical and historical perspectives on creative film making.
"The films represent the diversity of the students themselves and their differing approaches to telling stories on screen, whether comedy, horror, drama or non-fiction. In a time of real concerns around tolerance and inclusiveness, and around the role of creative arts in academia, these films are a celebration of the myriad arts of creative storytelling."
Highlights from this year's programme included Hippocampus, a drama-comedy directed by Heidi O’Loughlin following Alan the seahorse as he nervously waits for his date to arrive in a restaurant under the sea. Hippocampus stars award-winning stand-up comedian Josie Long, and Taylor Frost, who currently appears in National Geographic's Einstein.
Heidi said: "We shot Hippocampus over two days at Central House, transforming the building in to an underwater restaurant. Studying Film and Broadcast Production at The Cass has been an inspiring experience and proved that film can truly be art."
Other films screened at the event included Shadow, a drama directed by student Azad Khan, where an isolated man suffering from a mental illness and stigmatised by society, sacrifices his own life for his family’s honour, and Olivia, directed by Ruben Gonzalez, in which a man seeks therapy to overcome a bad smoking habit only to realise his true addiction is his ex lover.
The event also included an awards ceremony presented by Jeremy Collins and Michael Upton. This year's winners included:
- Personal Development Prize - Geoffrey Badu-Anum
- Best Role Portfolio - Yasmin Seddon
- Best Art Direction - Billy Turner
- Best Team Player - Joe Dore
- Best Dissertation, Film - Joe Dore
- Best Dissertation, Writing Prize - Heidi O'Loughlin
The annual Final Cuts screening grew out of the 'Exhibition and Representation' module, led this year by Paul Smith and Michael Upton, where students explore approaches to producing showreels, programming and showing work, and the uses of PR, marketing and social media.
Image: Still from Hippocampus
