The British Council’s Film ON products compete at international film festivals

“Two films, representing Uzbekistan at Paris Spring Festival (Lion, 3 June 2008) are the Production of British Council’s Film On project”. This is a line from news about forthcoming Arts event Maison d'Europe et d'Orient in France this June.  Shukhrat Karimov, young filmmaker, director of one of these films “Travelling Lady”, who had a chance to participate in British Council’s FilmON project in  April 2006, tells his story:

It was very interesting and important for me to gain a chance to shoot a film of my own as well as attend master classes by Feysal Kureyshi, well-known British film director.

The point is that presently there is not a single school of cinematography in Uzbekistan. All film directors functioning in Uzbekistan graduated either from  Russian State Institute of Cinematography or from relevant courses in Moscow. Unfortunately, film directors of our generation do not have such opportunities. Most of the time we are our own teachers and try hard to invent things that already exist in other parts of the world.

Thanks to the FilmON project we were introduced to the UK experience in the area of film production. Besides we got a chance to learn many things about the British approach to filmmaking that is competitive at international film festivals. Upon the end of the project all five selected finalists succeeded to make their own short films.

So what are the results so far? Looking back, I can tell that I learned a lot of things from the project. All of this gave me stimulus for further professional and creative development.

Film ON successes to date:

1)Film “Traveller lady” was presented at “Kinostan” - the first independent non-governmental Kyrgyz film festival. (August 24 to September 2, 2007 in Bishkek and Issykkul).

2)Film “Traveller lady” was presented at the 11th forum of National Cinematography, held by Russian Union of Cinematographists. (November 1 - 9, 2007 in Belyie Stolby, Gosfilmfond)

3)Films: “One Shot” by Ruslan Pak, “Cold Dish” by Sergei Tikhomirov and “Ladybird” by Eugene Palekhova was presented at 3rd Film Festival of Youth from Central Asia “Ijodiy Parvos” (12—18 May – Tashkeent, Bukhara)

4)Films “Traveller lady”  by Shukhrat Karimov and “One Shot” by Ruslan Pak  were selected among other six films to represent Central Asia at  3rd independent film festival of France and Easten Europe “Spring in Paris” to be held in France, May-June 2008.

You can read synopsises for short films produced by local directors here.