48 Hour Film Competition Awards

Supported by Herne Hill’s very own Yoga Point, in 2018 the Herne Hill Free Film Festival’s 48 Hour Film Challenge is back to continue its high, low, deep and shallow search for the very best local filmmaking talent. If you’re not already familiar with the biggest annual filmmaking competition the SE24 postcode has ever seen, we give you a line of dialogue, a prop, a Herne Hill location and 48 hours and all you have to give us is a 3 minute short film that will make SE23 and SE25 seethe with jealousy. For the first time this year we’re awarding cash prizes, of £100 for the best film and £50 for the winner of each category (so if you win the overall competition, since you would have won your category, you take home a lottery-like total of £150).

The clock starts ticking on Saturday 5 May so come to The Prince Regent between 12pm and 1:30pm  to enter, and come back 48 hours later between 12pm and 1:30pm on 7 May  (a bank holiday) with your Clockie* winner. As with previous years there are three competition categories (under 16s; over 16s; and families) and you can be as creative as you wish using your phone, a tablet, a camera or anything else you can lay your hands on to craft your masterpiece. Judging is by a panel of Oscar winners (as in actual people that have won an Oscar) and, erm, other filmmaking professionals (also known as people that have not won an Oscar).

The awards ceremony will see the Herne Hill Free Film Festival open up the top room at Herne Hill Station on 20 May for public use for the first time, which is probably the most exciting thing to happen in the area, possibly ever. Winners will also be screened ahead of our Station Square event on the evening of 27 May for the cinematic education of the whole of Herne Hill.

*The prize all Oscar, Palme d’Or and Golden Bear winners would happily trade their awards and grandmothers for. Crafted from solid wood, ink from a pen and real (yes, real) plastic buttons, Herne Hill’s iconic Clockie is an accurate representation (with a healthy dose of artistic discretion) of Brockwell Park’s famous clock tower.

This year the 48hr Film Challenge is being generously supported by the wonderful people at Yoga Point, a friendly, straightforward place where people can enjoy practising yoga as part of a supportive community. We’re showing Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow there on 5 May at 8PM so come along to see what they’re about!

As part of this year’s Herne Hill Free Film Festival we are excited to be partnering with the Norwood and Brixton Food Bank, helping to raise awareness for this most worthy of local causes. We will be collecting food donations and spare change at each of our screenings so, if you can, any food or money that you can spare would be greatly appreciated to help this wonderful charity continue the admirable work they do in the local area. We will be tweeting information about urgently needed items so stay tuned on Twitter to @HerneHillFilm.