May highlights
Our monthly London Film School community updates from students, alumni, and staff
Graduation film successes
Macchiato has reached the Finalist stage of the GSA BAFTA Student Awards. Huge congratulations to Dir. Prospero Pensa, DoP Fryas Slaiman, AD Zhizi Hao, and the rest of the crew.
Landing Point (Dir. Hong Cheng) and Some Manifestations of the South (Dir. / DoP / Editor Zhiyi Wang) will have their US premiere at PalmSprings ShortFest in late June.
A Firecracker Story will have its world premiere at Shanghai IFF in June. Congrats to graduates: Dir. Zhizi Hao, Producer Naixin Liang, DoP Guyuan Ma, Editor Xiao Ding, Prod. Design Yiling Ding, and the rest of the crew!
My Other Suit Is Human (Dir. Andrew Montague), Lisboa Santarem (Dir. Frederico Nobre), and The Angler (Dir. Yu-Lin Chung) screened at Fastnet Film Festival.
Transit (Dir Ariq Khan) has been selected to screen at Clement Ferrand in June at a special screening for World Refugee Day, in partnership with Amnesty International.
Alumni achievements
Daina O. Pusic is about to start shooting her debut feature film, backed by major players A24, BBC Films, and BFI. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is set to star in the “mother-daughter fairytale.”
Rafael Manuel and Zhannat Alshanova’s respective debut feature projects have both been named in the Hubert Bals Fund’s Spring selection and will receive a Script & Project Development grant of €10,000 each.
TJ O’Grady-Peyton’s latest short film Silence is set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Angela Franklyn has been selected for the inaugural Writers Lab UK and Ireland, the international offshoot of the script development program for woman and non-binary writers over 40.
Chris Brake’s latest short film Canned Laughter is part of BFI NETWORK’s shorts slate for 2021.
Celine Cotran’s feature project Layla in Dreamland was selected for the Breaking Through the Lens film financing initiative shortlist.
Remi Itani’s short film Drought (DoP Sebastián Lojo, Ed. Terence Chim) and Orkhan Aghazadeh’s The Womb (Producer Anastasia Raykova, DoP Cem Demirer, Editor Iacopo Calabrese) will screen in competition at the Palm Springs ShortFest 2021.
Michael Graf is part of the producing team on new drama Something You Said Last Night, one of 8 feature projects that will take part in the Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival’s financing forum.
For Fangoria, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas wrote about alumna Shimako Satō’s 1992 feature Tale of a Vampire in a column exploring largely overlooked women-directed horror films.
Flora Tennant’s short film Mr Alan on Saturday (DoP Abi Hurcomb, Prod. Design Davide Valsecchi, Editor Iacopo Calabrese) screened at the Manchester Kinofilm Festival and will screen in June at the Malibu Film Festival.
Cait Lyn Adamson (Producer), Alisa Tritenko (Production Manager), and Tamas Apor Meder (Unit Driver) all worked on Will Young’s latest music video, Daniel.
Mary Hasavari discussed her journey into filmmaking and her ongoing work on the Minter Dialogue podcast.
