Written by Shona Smith on Jan 17, 2019. Posted in General Interest

straight 8 2019 calls for entries and announces jury

straight 8 – the global super 8 film competition is now open for entries. Anyone anywhere is invited to make a short film on one cartridge of super 8 film and newcomers are encouraged to enter. For the fourteenth year running the best entries will be screened at straight 8 premieres at Cannes Film Festival.

straight 8 celebrates the art of filmmaking as each entrant creates their short film by editing only with each pull of their camera’s trigger. Each film’s maximum length is 3 minute twenty seconds – dictated by the fifteen metres of celluloid film in that one super 8 cartridge. No post-production, no grading, no fiddling or fixing shooting on straight 8 goes back to basics. Soundtracks are created without having seen the film and must be original.

The first-time successful entrants will see their own work is at one of straight 8’s packed and riotous premieres and the best entries will premiere at Cannes Film Festival, all without anyone seeing their work first.

This year’s jury will include Asif Kapadia (Academy, BAFTA and Grammy Award Winning Director: Amy, Senna, The Warrior) and Justine Wright (Editor: Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void, Locke, Yardie). New to the jury this year are Robbie Ryan (Director of Photography: The Favourite, American Honey, I, Daniel Blake, Slow West) and Steve Oram (Actor, Screenwriter: Sightseers, Actor: Sally4Ever, The End of the F***ing World) who has also been involved as a director/actor in numerous classic straight 8 films previously.

Kapadia notes that “I started shooting on super 8 and 16mm. What I love about straight 8 is it reminds you that film is precious; every frame, every second is valuable. Shooting without a screen, no sound, no playback, no way to delete mistakes. Encourages you to think before you shoot and to trust your gut instincts. This is how the masters like Hitchcock and Scorsese started. That’s what I love about straight 8, it’s the magic of cinema in its purest form”.

One-hundred of the one-hundred-and-fifty available places have already been taken by filmmakers on five continents and in seventeen countries. No theme is set, and all backgrounds and levels of experience are encouraged to embrace the level playing field that straight 8 represents.

2019 marks the twentieth anniversary year for straight 8. Ed Sayers, straight 8 founder remarks “It’s hard to believe that it’ll be twenty years this May since we screened the first twenty-two straight 8 films, in a packed West End cinema in London. The efforts people have gone to to make memorable cinema, with such ridiculous restriction, continues to be mind boggling and the growing selection of films inspire ever more waves of filmmakers willing to give it a crack. The family grows, and the door is always open.

straight 8 2019 is open now until all the places are taken. Entry is only available on the straight 8 website.