| 
'“The BAFTA, multi award winning film 'September' is one of those
cinematic shorts that keeps on catching the imagination of its public,
proving a critical success, scooping a BAFTA, touring America and Europe,
grabbing its UK premiere at the prestigious Times London Film Festival.
Before the film’s release, writer/director, Esther May Campbell
was tipped by industry mag, Screen International as this year’s
‘Star Of Tomorrow’. This film’s magical feel contained
by a story of escape stands out. The director, cast and production team
are receiving attention from the 22 minute film made on a limited budget
with an odd ball cast of characters crewed up from Bristol's near legendary
underground cinema collective The Cube Cinema and circus troupes, made
even more pertinent by a killer soundtrack and the editing whizz of
John Minton (Portishead's in-house visual artist). Enjoy?”
- Shooting People
Directors Notes
www.directorsnotes.com/2009/03/28/dn-ep-127-september-esther-may-campbell
Shooting People
www.shootingpeople.org/shooterfilms
and daftness:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffM67dtTRH8
“We were unanimous that the films that stood out were all films
that confounded our expectations.– In each case we thought we
were in for something routine and ordinary, but then found that content
or style, or both, revealed unexpected dimensions and extraordinary
surprises... Finally, there was one film that astonished and delighted
us by its mature use of cinema to combine deftly managed realism with
a dimension of pure magic. For its choice of a story perfectly suited
to its screentime, for the pleasingly understated performances of its
leading players, and for its apparently effortless blending of disparate
elements to create an entirely credible world, the British Council AWARD
for the overall best British film goes to... Esther May Campbell for
September.”
- The British jury at Encounters Film Festival 2008
“A short film from England by Esther May Campbell, September,
is a poetic look at growing up with a young man who works at a fast
food restaurant located beside a highway. Beautifully shot in an enigmatic
and poetic style, it’s subtle and magical. It’s a perfect
example of how a short film can create a world that takes us away and
provides perspective on how people are. It was definitely my favourite
short film of the festival and I kept thinking about it for days.”
- Atlantic Film Festival
“One winter, pregnant, driving every morning from my West Country
home through the decaying Estuary across the Severn, and to Bridgend
in South Wales, to teach teens, I’d leave in darkness to feel
the sun break through asphalt horizons and watch the intermittent low
sun bled through my window. Once I saw a swan flying in motion alongside
following an HGV on the motorway. Crossing flyovers above, I saw vans,
cows, kids, lost men, prams, lone figures inspecting cars speeding below.
And this got me thinking about being still, slow, watching when the
world roars at umpteen miles an hour.
I was thinking about the kids in Bridgend. How I heard a careers adviser
suggest to them there was no point studying - it’d end in debt.
Get jobs, she said. Bridgend. No debt working at Dixon’s. Ferociously
consuming films, mountains of weed, DVDs, electronic games. And it got
me thinking about being stuck. What might un-stick?
I watched figures accumulate on flyovers, and wondered what ifs. What
was out there, beyond bridges to Bridgend? Abandoned fields, deadends,
ghost villages. What’s happening to the once rural land, cut off
by suburban sprawls and motorways? And it got me thinking about movement,
not just sideways, but upwards. Vertical and horizontal.
So there came an image, of a boy looking at a girl. She is hovering,
impossibly, an inch above the long grass blowing in the evening light.
And her skill comes at a cost, and his change would come at a cost too.
And I wondered what that would be?
British cinemascapes always need re-imagining, re-scoring. Once rural
worlds and town communities are now fragmented, brutal and beautiful.
Look in the inbetween places. Stay still and see. We explored and played,
got caught up in the their stories, stopping long enough to dream and
capture, one week in September.” |
