Special Mention at Prestigious Festival

Emily's Song recieved a speicial mention at this years Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

It's great news for us, we couldn't be happier.

‘Emily’s Song’ competed in the Children's and Youth Film Competition. The jury stated “The film is funny, spritely and entertaining and came very close to the winning film of this year's Festival. It shows that there is also a soft side to an insane boy and that family ties are also important. The film both moved us and made us laugh. The special mention goes to Frank Kelly and Thomas Kennedy from Ireland for their film Emily's Song.”

The 53rd edition of the prestigious Oberhausen Festival ran from the 3 – 8 May. 147 short films were selected from 43 countries to compete at the festival, chosen from over 6,500 entries received.

It was a great festival, very relaxed but well organised and there was an amazing standard of film. Thomas and I had our work cut out for us trying to get to see as many as we could. The competition was strong and the films were excellent. We met some talented film makers and over all it was a very inspirational week.

The overall winner in our section was Schnabi, from Switzerland, which was excellent, about sexual curiousity at the precipice of puberty but told in a very innocent, charming and funny way. Schnabi mean "Willy" by the way!

We were also delighted at the fact that another Irish film won the principal prize in the International Competition, Methamorphasis by Clare Langan, which happened to be my favourite film of the festival. It was absolutely breathtaking a true work of cinematic art. Stunning landscapes and beautiful imagery it was about the harsh and raw destructive power of nature. Seek this film out.

Clare also has installations based on her films which include huge images taken from her films. I'm going to the next one, I would strongly recommend that anyone reading this go find it too. go to www.clarelangan.com to chesk out her work. She told me her website needs updating, at the moment it's a year old, but keep checking back.

Well that's all from me for the moment. I'm off to get the next film moving. We have two short scripts to get ready over the next three weeks, so we've a lot of work to do. Hopefully one of them will break some ground and we can get back to Oberhausen some day. It was a great festival.

Me outside our hotel in Oberhausen.