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Nanaimo’s film community is alive and well.
The second-annual Vancouver Island Short Film Festival was a huge success, with a sold out crowd enjoying seventeen incredible short films.
“Things went great,” said John Gardiner, Nanaimo Arts Council program coordinator and festival co-organizer.
“We expected a good turnout in our second year, but things went even better than we hoped. We sold out the Malaspina Theatre, put on a great show and got a great response from the crowd so we decided to put on a second show.”
Awards were given out in six categories at the end of the evening.
Paul Whittington won best film for his short “Android 207″, a stop motion, animated film about an android trapped inside a large maze. “Android 207″ also won awards for best Technical Production and the People’s Choice Award.
Graham Stark and Paul Saunders won the Best Writing Award for the second year in a row for their short comedy “How To Talk Like a Pirate” which is based on cheesy, old educational videos. Stark and Saunders are the creative force behind LoadingReadyRun.com, a Victoria based website that films and posts a new movie once a week every week and has done so for the last two years. Last year, they won the Best Writing award, as well as Best Performance and the People’s Choice Award.
Erik Richardson won the Best Performance Award this year for his role in “All May Be Well”, a dramatic piece about a young teacher coping with his own feelings of disconnection from those around him.
The Best Original Music award went to Ken Biddell for the movie “Dictators on a Plane” an ambitious, locally shot film about an African dictator who hires an English mercenary to restore him to power. Dictators was directed by Steve Fagan and written by Douglas Wolf.
The Festival took place on January 20th at the Malaspina University College Theatre.
The Vancouver Island Short Film Festival is a Nanaimo Arts Council event. For more information, please contact admin@visff.com or 729-3947.