Putting young filmmakers on an international stage

Young Kiwi filmmakers are gaining international recognition through a sustainability film competition.

Eleven out of the 20 films that won the 2015 Someday Challenge, which is part of The Outlook for Someday project, have recently been accepted into a range of international festivals.

The Someday Challenge is a film competition open to anyone up to the age of 24 which promotes sustainability.

As well as three New Zealand film festival nominations, seven of the winning films have been nominated for the All American High School Film Festival in New York. Three separate films have also been nominated in South Korea, Canada and Germany.

David Jacobs, project director for The Outlook for Someday, said this is more than double the number of 2014 films selected last year.

“Of course it would be lovely if it was all 20, but 11 is a pretty cool score!”

Alongside the annual Someday Challenge, The Outlook for Someday runs free film workshops around the country.

Mr Jacobs described the The Outlook for Someday as a media empowerment project with a sustainability focus, aimed at growing a generation of open-minded story tellers.

“At the core, sustainability is, of course, about the environment but it also encompasses other things like social justice, human rights, culture, identity and social inclusion.”

The competition is sponsored by a number of organisations, including The Body Shop and the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC).

Dale Corbett, head of talent development for NZFC, said it supports the enterprise because “it’s a grassroots talent development initiative”.

“We don’t fund a lot of youth initiatives but this is one of the key ones we support because of the wide range of ethnic and gender diversity.”

Mr Corbett previously worked with young filmmakers in Scotland, and said the quality of the Someday Challenge films was deserving of international attention.

“I would say some of the stuff is even bolder than the Europeans and that’s saying something because Europeans like to do very bold things.”

He noted Eutha-nation, a mockumentary type film by 17-year-old student Mason Cade Packer, as one example.

The film looks at a harrowing future where anyone over the age of 65 is killed off in an attempt to save resources.

Eutha-nation is one of the 2015 Someday Challenge winners nominated in this year’s All American High School Film Festival.

Mr Packer said his film stemmed from a casual conversation about solutions to global warming.

“Someone came out with the crazy idea that we needed to cap people to having only one child. I was like why don’t we do the opposite?”

The New Zealand Broadcasting School student first entered the competition in 2011 and took out its grand prize in 2014 with To the Rescue.

He plans to enter the Someday Challenge every year until he’s 24.

“To me, it’s probably the biggest and most well known competition in NZ.”

The Outlook for Someday is now processing the recently submitted 2016 Someday Challenge entries and will announce this year’s 20 winning films in late November.