Written by Shona Smith on Jul 3, 2020. Posted in Awards and Festivals

Gold and bronze trophies go to Japan, Silver to Spain in straight 8 shootout: the isolation edition

On June 25th straight 8 replaced their annual cinema premiere in Cannes with a live YouTube format for the company charity competition, Shootout. The online show is still available to view here.

Thirteen creative companies from across the globe tuned in to see their in-camera-edited super 8 films, all made under strict lockdown conditions. All of the companies who had signed up to compete for charity in the traditional straight 8 shootout subsequently agreed to make their films strictly in isolation as Covid-19 struck.

In true ‘show-must-go-on’ fashion, the stream included Ed and Alex from straight 8, in two different sheds in different parts of the UK delivering an experience similar to their popular Cannes event. The unscripted format included live attempts to surprise-Skype the winners and featured silly trophy clips starring Monty, the dog of one of the team at partner company: The Machine Shop. You can watch the films here.

Bronze Winner: Mr+Postive, Tokyo with Shoseph. Donating bronze prize fund to: The American School in Japan.

Silver Winner: Yolafilmo, Barcelona with Face Me. Donating silver prize fund to: Beyond Blue Mental Health Charity.

Gold Winner: NION, Tokyo with Stay Tricky. Donating gold prize fund to: 1% for The Planet.

Director Tomoyuki Kujirai of NION comments Director, Tomoyuki Kujirai of NION comments: “During isolation, there must have been a lot of people who thought about their roots. That’s when I found my finger board. I built different sections using old items that are precious to me, and simply played in them. Under the influence of COVID-19, the economy and the range of activities are shrinking, so ‘you can still have fun at your home by changing the way you think’ was the concept of this film. I did not think I was going to win this contest, so I was simply astonished!”