North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Kiwi movie makes short films festival
A film which was written in one day has been chosen as one of only 48 short films and music videos to be screened at the 2016 Show Me Shorts film festival.
The festival received 1500 submissions from more than 60 countries this year.
Georgina Bloomfield, who was raised on the North Shore but moved to Wellington for work a month ago, says she’s shocked her film, Fract, has been chosen.
Bloomfield directed the film and her close friend Grace Goulter, who lives in Chatswood, played the lead character.
The pair went to South Seas Film School in Wairau Valley together, and decided to enter the festival after seeing an Australian short film festival last year.
Fract is about a teenage outcast who discovers the cast on her broken arm can be a way to make new friends. It was filmed around Takapuna and Devonport.
‘‘What we really wanted the audience to take away from the film was just to understand the lengths that someone would go to for friendship,’’ Bloomfield says.
The 22-year-old says she wrote the script in one day, because otherwise she would have gotten bored with it.
She spent the next month finessing it, and filming took twoand-a-half days.
Bloomfield and Goulter spent a lot of time finding a way to make the audience sympathise with the main character.
‘‘There’s a lot of female characters which are stereotyped, for example, crazy or pretty women,’’ Bloomfield says.
‘‘We really tried to get a different level behind her, not just make her crazy or weird.’’
Bloomfield says they’re still stunned to have been chosen for the festival and the novelty hasn’t worn off.
Of the six-strong cast, all but two were female. Bloomfield says she was conscious of wanting to continue the conversation about women in the film industry.
Fract has been entered into the Secrets and Lies category of the festival and the winners of each of the seven categories, as well as the other prizes, will be announced on October 1 at an opening night at The Civic in Auckland. The films will be screened around the country over the next few months. For a schedule, see showmeshorts.co.nz.