MUMBAI: Soft, Simon Ellis’s critically acclaimed short film, commissioned by Film4 and the UK Film Council with The Bureau for Cinema Extreme, has won Best Live Action Short at the Toronto Short Film Festival, as well as the Audience Award and a ‘Special Mention’ at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival.
The Cinema Extreme programme, which enables new filmmakers to prepare for feature films by making a professional short film, has bred a number of multi award-winning British directors including Andrea Arnold, who won an Oscar for Wasp, and Duane Hopkins, whose film Love Me or Leave Me Alone won several awards including Best Short at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Cinema Extreme is now on the hunt for the next big name in British filmmaking. Up to four projects will be selected and funded at the end of the call for applications, which runs until
Cinema Extreme is managed by London-based production company The Bureau for the UK Film Council and Film4. Lifesize manages all of the UK Film Council’s short film schemes. So far 19 films have been commissioned through Cinema Extreme, and have gone on to be screened at festivals around the world and win awards.
In addition, A Changed Man director Jens Jonsson went on to direct God Morgon Alla Barn. The Bypass producer Trevor Ingman is producing feature documentary The Meerkats. Dog’s Mercury director Martin Raddich and producer Jane Hooks are in production on Crack Willow. Ellis and producer Jane Hooks are in post-production on Dogging: A Love Story.
UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund head Lenny Crooks says, “The Cinema Extreme scheme forms an integral part of our overall aim, to find distinctive new filmmaking talents and support them, building their work into the
