UNICA Festivals: 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2007 | 2008 | Daegu & Kyongju, South Korea, 2006 - Click for festival details.

British Entries

Seven Great Movies and an intro

UNICA is the festival where nations compete. Each national federation has about an hour of screen time but you must add 4 minutes to each movie to allow the judging panel to make notes. Click on the titles of most of those in the list to read more about them.

	Intro First comes an optional introductory movie - usually used to show famous landmarks in the nation concerned - ours have a tradition of being different and a bit quirky. We are not revealing any details yet ... let's keep it a surprise for the audience in Kyongju.
	EXTINCTION EVENT by Alan Atkinson won the Best Humour, Best British and an International Award at BIAFF 2006. It deals with the end of the world. As Alan says: "I wanted it to be a very 'busy' movie, with more jokes than the audience could spot at one sitting, rather in the style of my favourite film - Airplane. We managed to squeeze about one hundred verbal & visual gags into eighteen minutes."
	MAKING MUSIC by Tristam Thomas won the Best Youth Entry and a Gold Award at BIAFF 2006. Tristam says: "While my dad (Mark Thomas) was scoring the British spy-spoof comedy feature film Back In Business in the famous Abbey Road studios it occurred to me that there was a music-led documentary in there somewhere right under my nose. Here was a chance to film some world class session musicians in action and delve into the fascinating world of feature film post production."
	REASONS by Alan Colegrave won an International Medallion at BIAFF 2006. Alan comments: "I guess it was after watching Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine that I had the idea for a drama-documentary tracing a perpetrator from an early age to the time of the event. What was his psychological profile? Was he guilty of a heinous crime or a victim of circumstances?"
	CAR PARK by Borderline Productions - Bob Vine & Graeme Webb - won a Gold Standard award and a sponsor's prize from Focus Music at BIAFF 2006. Bob says: "We wanted to apply a certain style to the film, rather like the film Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Colour was desaturated slightly to remove that 'video look', a filter applied to get the overall style and then checked against television specs to ensure the colours did not exceed them. A first draft edit was created and then a soundtrack built up around it including sound effects of police sirens etc."
	Epilogue This is a mystery movie, credited to Walter Duncaster. The maker is a man of mystery who prefers not to reveal anything about the movie before it is shown in South Korea.
World Minute Movie Cup - a knockout competition - is a fun part of every UNICA Festival. A pre-selection team sort out the 16 best entries. One evening these are drawn in pairs and each pair shown. The audience votes which of the pair should go forward to the next round.In the second round the 8 remaining films are paired, shown and voted on. And so on. UK has two entries for 2006:
	PLAN B by Clive Atkins won Best Minute Movie and a Gold Standard Award at BIAFF 2006. Clive says: "I am a retired television Sound Director and have made 72 AVs and 53 videos so far. I use Casablanca Avio. Plan B came about mainly because a friend of mine had a replica space suit made for a series of lectures."
	PRAYER by Brian Dunckley stars the director - the man with the most expressive face in movies - working in a genre of which he is a master. Yes, there is a very funny twist in the tail, but this is a movie carried by the performance. The attention to detail is impressive too.

Page updated on 21 March 2008

Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers

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