3 young Islanders welcomed over 70 guests to the premiere of their short films at Cineworld Newport last Thursday (16th September).
The short films were commissioned by StoneCrabs Theatre in partnership with Prettyr Ltd, to respond to the themes of the Young Directors Playdoh Festival: language, confinement, politics, roots and identity.
Sam Lapham, Charis May Sedgwick and Lucas Berry spent an intensive month and a half with StoneCrabs as they received mentorship on storytelling, scriptwriting, directing, casting and editing.
Sam’s film Island’s Cry deals with the dichotomy many young people experience living on the Island, whether they should stay or leave it. On the night, Sam explained that the project taught him a lot about collaborating and communicating, going through professional pre-production phases. He added:
“We need more opportunities like this, you see them in Universities, but very rarely you get such schemes on the Island”.
Charis explained that making her film helped her deal with a lot of mental health issues and “it also made me feel more confident on my writing ability’ and that it was great to be shown another route into creating new work.
Lucas who wrote and directed ‘In Passing’ explained that he “learned loads from this collective project, particularly when having to respond to deadlines and having a professional approach to making the work”. His film ‘In Passing’ deals with the theme of Identity.
StoneCrabs Young Creatives has just received green light to continue working with young people aged 16 – 26 on the Isle of Wight who are interested in working with digital film. To apply visit www.stonecrabs.co.uk/islands. The deadline for new applications is 5th October.
The ‘Islands that shape us’ short films will have its online premiere at StoneCrabs youtube Channel on Thursday 30th September at 19:30.
