Hello Primetime Graduate Showcase 2021!
Primetime’s Graduate Showcase 2021 is back, with some incredible talent on the rise. Now is the time to champion new voices: here they are. Share their work, sign them, hire them.
Mya Kaplan
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m a Writer-Director and Cinematographer based in Tel Aviv, and these days I’m spending some time in Paris as well.
I have recently graduated from the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University and my graduation film ‘Night Visit’ has premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.
During my studies I wrote, directed and created the cinematography for several short films including co-productions with film schools in Poland and China.
Alongside the cinematic work, I acted as the festival Director of the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival for two years.
What or who inspired you to become a filmmaker?
About ten years ago I travelled in Europe and the USA and I met a couple of filmmakers that really inspired me. I started watching lots of films and I fell in love with storytelling and with the strong emotional impact I felt (and still do) when watching a film I really like. I went to film school because I wanted to learn how to write scripts and how to create strong and unique images of my own.
Tell us a bit more about your project?
‘Night Visit’ is my graduation film, a 25 min drama.
It tells the story of Ruthie, a 20 year old that spends an unusual night with a guy from her village. After discovering the troubling circumstances that led to their unexpected romantic encounter, she must seek the truth and find her own way to confront him.
The film asks a principal and inconclusive question: Does a 'one night stand' initiated by a woman, become a sexual harassment when retrospectively it appears the men had questionable intentions?
The film leaves this question unanswered, aiming to present a deep and challenging narrative that raises moral dilemmas, but mostly looks into the soul's desires.
What was the most challenging aspect of making your film?
In the film, after a couple of minutes there is a twist in the plot that totally changes the viewer's perception of the story. It was a big challenge while writing and also while directing and editing, to get the right undertone and to balance the clues and hints so the viewer is carried away with the main character’s experience, but is also suspecting something else is happening.
What’s next for you?
These days I’m co-developing a script for a TV drama series and also writing my first feature film as a writer-director. I’ll be spending a couple of months in Paris, I hope I’ll get to meet more creative people to collaborate with.
What is your ultimate goal?
To intensively create films and TV series that I love and believe in, and that they will have a strong impact on a wide audience.
You can follow Mya here:
Bára Anna Stejskalová
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Okay! So... I am 29. I am going through different stages of addictions. The main one - of course - is the films, the second one is cigarettes. But I am planning to quit when I am 30, so wish me luck (wondering which one I am talking about?). I am a dog owner, postcard sender, and I am not particularly good at ironing.
But on the more serious side - I have started studying animation at Arts University College Bournemouth, and last year I got my MA degree at Film Academy of Prague (FAMU). I have been nominated twice for BAFTA Shortlist, received Burning Man Honorarium Grant with project HEARDT, my last movie Love Is Just a Death Away had a US premiere at SXSW, won at Palm Springs and many more festivals and we are still touring. I have founded my own studio Divize with a couple of my dear colleagues and friends, and currently I am working as Art Director at VR project Darkening and teaching at FAMU.
What or who inspired you to become a filmmaker?
I think I have proclaimed that I want to make animated films when I was about 7. Don't really know exactly why...still I am sometimes wondering why I am doing this to myself, all those dark months, sitting alone in a dark dark atelier... But no, I am joking. I think I have the best job in the world. I get to voice out my thoughts on the big screen, I can create my own words and actually touch them, and so many beings I teach how to live in front of my camera!
Tell us a bit more about your project?
Love Is Just a Death Away is a short tender horror story about finding love in between trash hills. People are saying it is something Wes Anderson and Tim Burton would have done together. It is disgusting, yet cute.
Took about a year and something to make in a small team.
What was the most challenging aspect of making your film?
Ok, I have already mentioned the word disgusting, so why not...here we go. The most challenging part was actually figuring out how to make wings for a little birdie puppet we have in the film. It took us months. We tried everything. We made them from paper. We 3D printed them. We tried gluing on feathers from the store. We tried fake fur. Everything. Nothing looked very good. But then one day, my coworker found a dead bird on his walk in the forest.........
What’s next for you?
I am actually writing my next script for the stop-motion underwater musical 9 Million Colors about mantis shrimp Fran who falls in love with blind fish Milva.
What is your ultimate goal
Waking up one morning and feeling like I am enough.
Lia Campbell
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am originally from a small town outside Belfast, Northern Ireland called Newtownards. One side of my family are Northern Irish and then my grandmother is German. My Irish-German Heritage is something I’m very proud of and I think that it's because of this I’ve always had an interest in exploring multiculturalism and identity in my work. I graduated from the IADT National Film School in Dún Laoghaire in 2020 after gaining a first-class honours degree in Film & TV production. In my final year I majored in Fictional Direction and minored in Creative Production. I now work as a freelance filmmaker across Dublin and Belfast.
What or who inspired you to become a filmmaker?
My mother worked as a community film programmer at a small theatre in Belfast called the QFT, so growing up, she was always bringing back screeners of these amazing European films which opened my eyes from a young age to the potential of international cinema. I had also been interested in theatre and acting but after taking part in a short film when I was 12, I became aware of the potential of storytelling and wanted to translate my own experiences on screen for a wider audience. In my final two years of secondary school, I had an amazing art teacher who encouraged me to explore photography and visual art for my final project. I was very attracted to social realism and photographers like Nan Goldin, Viviane Myers and Doretha Lange. Images and stories that looked at people, place and identity became my interest and subsequently I started to watch the films of Ken Loach, Mark Cousins and Agnès Varda.
Tell us a bit more about your project?
To All My Darlings was my college graduation film project which I directed. I collaborated with writer Derek Ugochukwu; a graduate of the M/A screenwriting course at the IADT National Film School. He had sent me the script for the film, and I felt that the story was something I’d not seen represented before on the Irish short film circuit and became passionate about bringing it into fruition. We shot the project over a period of 7 days with an emerging cast & crew, made up of a majority of other students from the TV & Film course at the National Film School. The film follows a young woman Adaeze who, after another tragic miscarriagefeels torn between religious obligations and revealing the truth of her medical diagnosis to her loving husband.
What was the most challenging aspect of making your film?
As with all short films, budget restraints are always challenging, but also the pressure that came alongside directing the film. I felt a huge responsibility, as I was not from a Nigerian background myself, to tell this story as authentically as possible. I made sure to put in a lot of research and preparation, and collaborate closely with my cast and HODs. Although it can be challenging, I'm always drawn to want to projects which push me out of my comfort zone. For me, this is often necessary to produce something which I feel proud of.
What’s next for you?
I am developing my next fiction short project which I hope to film in 2022. My aim is to gain more experience in directing another short project and eventually go on to direct my first feature length film. I am also producing and devloping projects alongside other filmmakers. Collaboration is very important for me, so connecting with other creatives; whether it be in film, photography or writing is a huge part of my creative process.
What is your ultimate goal?
In the future I would love to set-up my own creative production company and develop a slate of projects which start conversations through female-led stories and elevate voices which otherwise may not be heard.
Lina Kalcheva
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I'm an animation director from Bulgaria, living in the UK. I came from a painting background and originally studied Fine Art, Film and Theatre. I started animating as a kind of combination of these things and I found that's it's one of the only things I can do for really long periods of time and stay engaged, it excited me to see things come to life - so I figured it's what I should pursue further! I've just finished my MA in Directing Animation from NFTS.
What or who inspired you to become a filmmaker?
Visual storytelling in general has always impacted me deeply and I've always had a passion for it. Films, animation, video games or comics - whatever it is, I've usually got something I'm obsessed with at any given time. Especially while growing up, these stories have been a way for me to reflect on my own experiences and interpret what goes on in my life. I've always been drawn to fantasy, surrealism and generally bizzare things that are escapist while still being something I can relate to, in a way that recontextualises my own experiences and gives me a different perspective on them. That idea is what made me gravitate towards animation in particular, because of the freedom it gives me to create any sort of world, characters or situations that can be as weird as I want while still talking about real things.
Tell us a bit more about your project?
Other Half was my graduation film from the National Film and Television School, which premiered in Cannes this July as a part of Cinéfondation. It's a fantasy inspired by Greek mythology. The main story we based it on was from Plato's Symposium, a speech about where love comes from: that originally, humans had two hands, and two sets of arms and legs, and were separated by the gods because they were too powerful - which is why we're always looking for our other half. Some of the characters were also based on mythological figures, like Narcissus, Icarus and Medusa, who represent different types of toxic relationships. I wanted to make a film that frames some of the romantic struggles we experience internally as this epic heroic journey: needing to prove ourselves, compromising our identities, and what we learn in the process.
What was the most challenging aspect of making your film?
Probably the technique! We knew we wanted to make a physical, analog film and use materials and a style that serve the story, and we were planning to test and experiment for a few months before shooting. The general idea was flat characters with model sets on a multiplane, so the world feels real and three-dimensional while the characters have fluidity and freedom of movement. Unfortunately, our testing months ended up right towards the beginning of the pandemic, during the first UK lockdown, which meant that we had to finalise technique, build sets and storyboard basically without being able to try or test anything. A few times I was able to test the character animation in the garden behind my building, but we had no idea how everything would actually look together, since we didn't have any other films to look at that used this technique. It was a stressful couple of months! Even more so when we got back on set and we only had a few weeks to figure it all out before the shoot started - but once it got going it was really rewarding!
What’s next for you?
At the moment I'm in development for another short film with my writer and producer from Other Half, Michelle Brøndum and Laura Jayne Tunbridge, quite different in tone, a bit darker and more psychological. I'm really excited about it and hope to be able to make it soon!
What is your ultimate goal?
I'd love to keep directing and to work on longer projects - features or series. It would be amazing to keep the working relationships I developed with my team and to perhaps co-direct something with another animator! I also love games so it would be fun to be involved in making one. This might be a bit broad but I just want to keep working on projects and trying different things.
Ida Melum
Tell us a bit about yourself
I am a BAFTA nominated animation director based in Sweden and the UK. When I was younger I spent a lot of time in various acting groups and making silly films and animations with my friends back home in Norway. It never occurred to me then that I could actually do this for a living until I applied for a BA in animation at Middlesex University. After my BA I was able to work both in motion graphics and as an assistant stop motion animator on some amazing films. But I really missed the story telling part of filmmaking, and decided to apply for the MA Directing Animation course at the National Film and Television School. There I made several films, including my grad film “Night of the Living Dread”, which is now doing its festival run.
What or who inspired you to become a filmmaker?
I have always loved films and I think what drew me to being an animation director specifically is that it encompasses all the things that I like in one; story telling, acting, working with people, art and solving challenges both technical and on set. It can be as digital or as tactile as I want it to be. Even though it's really challenging at times, all it takes is hearing an audience enjoy my work for me to get ready to start working on another film.
Tell us a bit more about your project?
"Night of the Living Dread" is a film about Ruby, who’s bedtime routine gets ruined by a power cut and finds herself haunted by some unwanted guests. The only way for Ruby to get a peaceful night of sleep is to confront her visitors. The film deals with insomnia and anxiety, something I have dealt my fair share with and still do from time to time. I wanted to make a film that addressed issues which were common but not often spoken about. Being trapped with your thoughts at night inspired the nudge to traditional horror films. The comedy and the mundane also became an important part of telling the story. The idea was to take back control of a subject that is often debilitating by having fun with it. In the end I wanted to make a film that my younger self could relate to and it has been wonderful seeing the film resonate with such a broad audience.
What was the most challenging aspect of making your film?
One of the biggest challenges was going from audience screenings to zoom screenings while figuring out the flow of the film.To not get the immediate feedback from an audience was especially tricky for the comedy in the film, where timing is everything.
What’s next for you?
I am currently working on another short film and I'm really excited to continue developing the story before getting it into production. I am also wrapping up a job for the BBC and I have a few freelance gigs lined up. Mostly I am really excited to go to some of this year's festivals, I cannot wait to watch films in cinemas and meet other filmmakers, and have a pint!
What is your ultimate goal?
I’m a person with many short goals, several of them right now are related to the short film I am developing. But if I had to choose an ultimate goal, it would have to be making a living creating films in any shape or form, whether that's short films, series, features or commercial work.
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