The Battle of Branchage

The popularity of the Battle of Branchage video below is amazing - it's through the roof, getting re-posted, re-blogged and mercilessly viewed across the internet, and across the world.

It's no surprise either... take a look and you'll understand why people can't get enough of watching this video of the cutting edge projections that lit up Mont Orgueil Castle at Branchage in Oct 2009. The projections were put on by the combined forces of Seeper and Flat-E, and the totally site-specific spectacle was inspired by the crumbly Medieval glory of Gorey Castle, perched atop Mont Orgueil on the rocky Jersey coastline.

Watch it, send the link to your friends... few things make Team Branchage as happy as seeing people watch this video for the first time. Enjoy!


Battle of Branchage from seeper on Vimeo.

Branchage Festival announces 2009 Award Winners!

We are delighted to announce the very deserving and talented Branchage Festival 2009 award winners:

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ISLANDERS AWARD (£2000)
Tell, directed by Laura Brocken

RUNNER UP ISLANDERS AWARD SUPPORTED BY LONDON FILM ACADEMY (£500 worth of LFA training)
Taken By The Air, directed by Mark Jones

Jury: Rebecca Mark-Lawson (Lizesize Pictures), John Davey (Spearpoint), James Mullighan (Shooting People), Michael Pearce (Director and winner of the Islanders Award 2008).

The Islanders Award Jury chose Laura Brocken (Tell) as the overall winner, taking home £2,000, whilst Mark Jones (Taken by the Air) as the runner up with £500 of London Film Academy Training. The jurors noticed with interest that both films were made with a good degree of collaboration, and that some of the others in the field suffered from a lack of that. To that end, John Davey and Thomas Dingle of the Jersey Arts Trust have additionally awarded both filmmakers bursaries to attend short film festivals on the mainland. Laura will be hosted at Encounters Short Film Festival in Bristol in Mid November, whilst Mark is invited to attend the London Short Film Festival in January.

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CUTTING HEDGE AWARD (£2000)
Girl Like Me, directed by Roland Jobson

Jury: Edward Fletcher (Soda Pictures), Claire Cook (BBC Film Network), Kobi Prempeh (Future Films & Projector TV)

"For it's compelling and arresting story, subtly handled by both director and excellent cast the Branchage Cutting Hedge Award Jury awarded Best Short Film to GIRL LIKE ME. We chose to award a Special Mention - PLANE DAYS for its notable cinematography and unique subject matter." - Jury member Kobi Prempeh, Future Films & Projector TV

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BUDDING TALENT AWARD (£2000)
Echoes, directed by Rob Brown

Jury: Gillies McKinnon (Director), Christine Bardsley (British Council), David Moats (The Quietus).
"An elegant film which says a great deal in a short space of time. The female leads are made into sympathetic, fleshed out characters with an economy of dialogue and image." - Jury member David Moats, The Quietus (pictured)

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MATTER DOCUMENTARY AWARD (£2000 + £1000 to a charity of filmmaker's choice):
Burma VJ, directed by Anders Østergaard

Jury: Simon Chinn (Producer), Rajesh Thind (OpenCircuit), Robert West (Working Films)
"In a strong line up of campaigning docs, the overwhelming consensus for the prize was Burma VJ.  With its simple and unvarnished narrative, it offers - via the raw and powerful footage of this group of brave citizen journalists - a unique window on a closed and brutal regime and the heroic efforts to undermine it. Here's hoping that the cash prize will go some small way to boosting the urgent campaign to bring democracy to Burma's oppressed people." - Jury member Simon Chinn, Producer and Branchage Patron)

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Filmmakers in attendance were handed their awards by Jury Members on the festival's Closing Night at the beautiful Jersey Opera House on 4th October.

Thanks to ALL the wonderful filmmakers who entered their films into the festival. The quality of films screening this year across all the events was very impressive and completely outstanding.

Choosing who the awards went to was a naturally a very tough one!...

Festival Director Xanthe Hamilton and James Mullighan (Creative Director of Shooting People) open the awards ceremony.

Director Laura Brocken receives the Islanders Award

Director Roland Jobson receives the Cutting Hedge Award

David Moats from The Quietus introduces the Budding Talent Award

Phil Burgin from Jersey Trust Company, one of the festival's key sponsors, introduces The Cutting Hedge Award.

Photos: Danny Evans

A peek into the Barclays Wealth Spiegeltent on Saturday Night

Saturday Night was La Bordee D'Branchage, our exclusive evening of delightful musical lunacy and retro charm and our last party in the Barclays Wealth Spiegeltent (sad faces all round).

Whilst enjoying the event ourselves, we captured our jubilant festival crowd on video, who were undoubtedly in the mood for shaking the floorboards one last time. We had an array of musical delights on offer, starting with Jersey's own Premiere Band taking a break from their usual repetoire to perform some mind-blowing Acid Jazz, followed by gorgeous and super talented sibling multi-instrumentalists Kitty Daisy & Lewis (featured in the video) who set the energetic pace for the evening.

 

The final act was brilliantly entertaining The Correspondents, fronted by an impressively limber front man who took us from a remix of The Jungle Book's "King of the Swingers" to some very dirty, danceable drum n' bass as a grand finale to the night.

Photos: Sebastian Meyer www.sebmeyer.com

Grand Jersey Hotel saves the Wizard of Oz Drive-in!!

It was strangely appropriate, but very very inconvenient. Yesterday's high winds were proving too dangerous for the blow-up screen at people's park to show classic film WIZARD OF OZ outdoors - it was so blustery that we had scary visions of our film fans young and old being whisked of to Oz in a magical tornado...

Of course, we couldn't allow that, and so were completely devastated thinking we were going to have to cancel (especially after the success of the Some Like It Hot drive-in the night before). But luckily with only 20 minutes notice, the Grand Jersey Hotel came to the rescue and let us use their plush rooms as an alternative!

The venue proved a hit, and it wasn't long before the audience was settled in their seats and Dorothy was dancing her red sparkly shoes along the yellow brick road with her lovable gang.

And lets not forget the 48 Hour Film Challenge filmmakers, who were hoping to screen their films that night. They were given the luxury of their own private screening room to share the little gems they had made during the past couple of days. More on them later. Sebastien Meyer, one of our festival photographers, managed to papp them all together in their directors chairs... what a gorgeous lot, eh?

The evening was well and truly saved - thank you Grand Jersey Hotel!

Photos: Danny Evans

Borut Strel - son of BIG RIVER MAN - at Branchage Festival

Yesterday saw Borut Strel, join the Jersey Polar Bears for a quick swim in the channel before the screening of the film he produced, which features the mad and admirable antics of his water-keen father Martin Strel as he swims the entire length of the Amazon river in documentary BIG RIVER MAN 

The Jersey Polar Bears kindly sponsored the event, which allowed us to invite Borut over from Slovenia to Jersey for a Q&A after the screening, before they both fly out to the US to promote the film there.

The event sold out in no time at all, and for those of you who didn't get a chance to see the lovely Borut talk, here he is a few minutes with him, interviewed by Catriona Wright - one of our Branchage Team: