international film competition 2023

2023 brings the 6th Fisheye International Film Competition.

Since it began in 2016 the competition has received hundreds of entries from countries around the globe and screened a selection of excellent films. This year we are looking forward to screening an equally high standard of entries.

award winners

We are pleased to announce the Fisheye Film Festival 2023 winners. As in previous years, films were judged on a number of categories with the winners receiving awards for their work.

BEST SCREENPLAY – ORDER 27

Honourable mentionDomar

 

BEST EDITING – TELL ME A STORY

Honourable mentionDomar

 

BEST ANIMATION – KING OF SEA

Honourable mentionThe Last Straw

 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – HALF SAMURAI

Honourable mentionDomar

 

BEST MUSIC – THE WILD ROOTS

Honourable mentionMirage

 

BEST SOUND DESIGN – GLITCH

Honourable mentionHalf Samurai; Mirage; The Wild Roots; La Nueva

 

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP DESIGN – HALF SAMURAI

Honourable mentionMirage

 

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – MIRAGE

Honourable mentionPhoto studio on the corner

 

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – PHOTO STUDIO ON THE CORNER

Honourable mentionMirage

 

BEST MALE PERFORMER – BRYAN BOUNDS (DYING TO MEET YOU)

Honourable mentionVikash Bhai (Cold Water)

 

BEST FEMALE PERFORMER – MALENA FILMUS (DOMAR)

Honourable mentionSiobhan Bevan (Cold Water)

 

BEST SHORT FILM BY A FILMMAKER AGED 22 OR UNDER – THE LAST STRAW

Honourable mentionDying to meet you

 

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM – FILM ROSA

Honourable mentionThe occurrence of colours by night

 

BEST MICRO SHORT – THE LAST STRAW

Honourable mentionForgive or cancel

 

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY – KUBRA

Honourable mentionThe Diver’s Son

 

BEST DIRECTOR – KING OF THE SEA

Honourable mentionMemories from the bomb

 

BEST SHORT GENRE FILM – LA NUEVA

Honourable mentionHalf Samurai

 

BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM – DOMAR

Honourable mentionLa Nueva

 

BEST UK SHORT FILM – HOPE

Honourable mentionPhoto studio on the corner

 

BEST SHORT FILM OF THE FESTIVAL – DOMAR

Honourable mentionKing of Sea

 

awards panel

For the 2023 Festival, we have an amazing panel of experts to judge Fisheye’s competitions.

Amanda Dorsett

As Head of Production at Resource Productions, Amanda has been working on short films & delivering talent development & media training programmes for over 10 years. Through Resource’s in-house talent development programme, Amanda has worked on over 10 award-winning films & over 30 film commissions including 10 for Channel 4 Random Acts & 6 for the BBC New Creatives film scheme. She has most recently co-produced ‘Us & In Between’ a BFI Network funded Short Film & ‘Whose Voice is it Anyway’ a Channel 4 Random Acts film for their anniversary strand. Each film she has made is to ensure underrepresented talent have an opportunity for their narratives to be told.

Resource Productions is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, based in Slough (the most diverse borough in the UK outside of London) with a 22-year track record in production. The company develops & produces short form content by, with & for the global majority, under-represented groups & those with socio-economic, access or geographic barriers to working in the creative industries. Resource have produced numerous Channel 4 Random Acts & several BBC New creative short film, arts & audio productions. In addition, they have secured support from the Arts Council England, BFI & Creative UK amongst others to produce award winning arts projects & short-form drama, documentary & animations, enabling them to develop diverse regionally-based emerging film and TV talent of all ages and backgrounds.

Find Resource Productions online at…

Website: Resource Productions
Twitter: @resourceprods
Instagram: @resourceproductions

Amita Shankar

A well-known name on the British-Asian stage, London-based Amita has been an actor & has also designed, curated & organised a number of theatre & cinema events in the UK & other countries.

Her focus across all these events has been in support of Women: from workshops on Women in Films in London to chairing the International Women’s Conference in various other countries to the roles she has championed women’s issues across multiple fronts. She is also a programmer & juror for various film & drama festivals around the globe

As an amateur actor in the UK’s Asian theatre circuits, she has acted in several successful shows — most recently “SHE, The Shakti”, a one-act dance drama, she scripted & acted in. She also finds time to contribute to radio/TV programmes supporting charitable causes.

She has been a juror for the Dhaka International Film Festival, Religion Today Film Festival, Italy, Rainbow Film Festival in London and Fisheye.

She is also a member of the Women of Faith for Peace Conference (Italy), a delegate at the Kazan Muslim Film Festival, a member of delegation at the Central Asian Arts Festival London to Bishkek and has been a motivational speaker at the Women’s Conference, Firozabad, India.

Besides her acting & film career, Amita has been an entrepreneur with the experience of having run her own art exhibitions & artwork shipping & handling business for over 15 years.

Andrew St Maur

Andrew is a proudly working class filmmaker from nearby Slough, and is a graduate of the National Film & Television School, where he was the proud recipient of a full scholarship from Pinewood Studios. He has subsequently set up his own production company, St Maur Pictures Ltd. In addition to his degree in Film Production, Andrew has a background in producing; 27 shorts for television broadcast for Channel 4 & the BBC, as well as funders including the BFI & Creative England. Many of his films have gone on to screen at BAFTA & Academy Award qualifying festivals around the world, picking up many awards.

Recently, Andrew was an associate producer on two fully financed European co-production short films, “Scale” (which screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022) & “Pops” which is currently screening on Disney+. He has several short films in post production and several features in development.

In summer 2021 he produced his debut feature “Little English” with Resource Productions, which had it’s festival premiere last summer at the BFI Southbank and will be released theatrically this spring.

Find Andrew online at…

Website: St Maur Pictures
Twitter: @st_maur94
Instagram: @st_maur94

Argyris Angeli

Argyris is an artist, architect & academic, born in Cyprus. His interdisciplinary body of work incorporates sculpture, fibres art, installations & spatial design as well as video, participatory & performance art.

He is the co-director of GesamtAtelier, an artists company which combines several creative fields for the creation of interdisciplinary, collaborative projects. His pieces have been presented in exhibitions, festivals, conferences & competitions across in Vienna, Derby, London, Krakow, Cyprus, Athens & Chicago.

As a member of the art collaborative “Collective Cleaners” he participated in projects for the Museum of Contemporary Art & the Jane Adams Hull-House Museums in Chicago.

An honours graduate from the School of Architecture Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens, he also studied sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He earned an MFA in Spatial Performance & Design with distinction at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, and has worked as the Course Leader of the BA(Hons) Interior & Spatial Design programme at the School of Art, Design & Performance of Buckinghamshire New University and he is currently a Studio Master at the Architectural Association Interprofessional Studio’s MA/MFA in Spatial Performance and Design.

Find Argyris online at…

Website: Gesamtatelier
Instagram: @argyris.angeli
Vimeo: GesamtAtelier

Janine Piguet

Janine is an actress, director & producer who splits her time living between Paris, Berlin & Switzerland. Speaking English, French, German & Italian fluently, she acts in feature films, series & theater. As an actress, she is known for having played the main part in the feature “Old Boys”, by Jean-François Amiguet, released in Swiss cinemas in 2022. In 2021, the series “I-Art” in which she acts was selected at the Cannes series. That same year, “Fortissimo”, her debut short film as a director (in which she acts the main part as well!), won the award of best short film of the festival at Fisheye, as well as 27 other awards & 52 nomination & has screened in 60 different countries. Following that, she shot a music video for the Eurovision Song Contest for the Swiss entry and also commissioned several films. She is currently working on her next short film project. As a producer, she has produced 12 shorts, a narrative feature & a documentary feature. She has became a member of the Swiss film academy in 2019.

Jo Southwell

Jo is an award-winning director across Film & TV. Having directed numerous & critically acclaimed short films, through Directors UK she undertook shadow directing mentorships on the hit shows “Killing Eve” for the BBC (under Jon East), and “Trigger Point” for ITV (under Jennie Darnell) – on which she performed 2nd unit directing services. She is currently directing on the long running BBC series “Doctors”. Her latest short film “Echo” has just begun festival submissions, and features scenes shot underwater with producing partner Pinewood Studios.

As a very collaborative director, she has also developed a production slate of her own under Aston Productions. She was selected as a Creative UK Female Founder & will be speaking at their Creative Coalition Festival in March. She is a full voting member of BAFTA & DUK.

Find Jo online at…

LinkedIn: Jo Southwell
Twitter: @josouthwell
Instagram: @jo_southwell1

Mariko Francombe

After an initial career in the food industry, Fine Art degree studies at Buckinghamshire New University led Mariko to performance & video art. She graduated in 2003, and the following year her interest in making films was inspired by participating in digital storytelling creation for the initial series of the BBC’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’.

Since then, Mariko has freelanced as a digital video producer & worked part-time at Bucks New University, joining the University’s Media department in 2012, working on films for corporate clients including Sennheiser & educational & promotional films in support of the curriculum. Mariko was a co-founder of the Ellipsis Network, making connections & working with young, local filmmakers. This led to her co-founding the Fisheye Film Festival in 2015.

The festival is currently the focus for Mariko’s work, and she finds the best rewards in this come from watching, evaluating, and curating the films and meeting the filmmakers.

Find Mariko online at…

Twitter: @fisheyefestival
Facebook:  @FisheyeFilmFestival
Instagram: @fisheyefilmfest

Martin Geisler

Martin is a previous award winner at the Fisheye Film Festival, and has this year been invited to be a part of our prize jury as a consequence.

Martin is a French writer and director based in Paris. After obtaining a master’s degree in philosophy & cinema, he began directing music videos and commercials for fashion and luxury brands.

In 2019, he directed “Match”, a short film that questions the feeling of love and male rivalry between a group of friends in their twenties. The film was selected & won numerous awards at film festivals around the world – including winning the “Best Screenplay” award at the Fisheye Film Festival in 2021.

Martin is currently preparing to shoot his next short film “Bultex” and is writing his debut feature film “Le brame du cerf”.

Find Martin online at…

Website: www.martingeisler.com

Martin W Payne

Martin is an actor, producer & director in the world of independent short & feature films. He’s been acting for over 25 years & made the leap onto the screen around nine years ago, since amassing over 100 credits. Most recently, he can be seen in “Mask of the Devil”, “Monstrous Disunion”, “lonely Hearts” and “Powertool Cheerleaders Vs The Boyband of the Screeching Dead”, all of which have had successful festival runs.

Martin has been on the jury for a number of film festivals in the past, and says “I make sure to watch all of the films on offer before thinking about judging, even if sometimes that is difficult. Occasionally short films that just grab me and demand a high score”, adding “arthouse & ‘no budget’ films are a true curate’s egg – sometimes unexpected magnificence can be found, and its joyful to see such creativity when it appears”.

Find Martin online at…

IMDB: MartinWPayne
Twitter: @MWPayne

Matthew Davies

Matt is a writer and producer and is co-owner of independent production company Ash Mountain Films. He has co-written and produced eleven short films as well as the multi-awarding winning features “Dogged” (2017), “Nefarious” (2019) and “Mask of the Devil” (2022).

When not filmmaking, Matt has authored short stories in conjunction with Red Cape Publishing and is a keen photographer, specialising in possibly the most obnoxious form of analogue photography (his words!)… Polaroid instant film.

Find Matthew online at…

Twitter: @thefirstheretic
Instagram: @thefirstheretic

Molly Isaac

Molly is a creative composer, sound designer & foley artist, experimenting with how far the boundaries of sound can be pushed & helping creators tell unforgettable stories. She currently works at KROTOS, the company behind award winning plugins revolutionizing the sound design workflow, allowing users powerful & efficient creation of sound design for post-production, game audio and music. She also holds a BSc in Music Composition & Technology for Film & Game.

She has worked on a wide range of projects including live immersive theatre, audiobooks, podcasts & sync work, most recently with BXB Studios on their new feature film “Sheryl”.

Find Molly online at…

Website:  mollyisaac.co.uk
LinkedIn: Molly Isaac
Link Tree: @MBIaudio

Richard Rowntree

Rich is an award-winning genre filmmaker with 11 short films & 3 features under his belt, which have screened at prestigious festivals all over the world. He has been working with Fisheye since the second edition of the festival, and is passionate about bringing new diverse new content to local audiences. He is co-director of Ash Mountain Films – a collaborative group of filmmakers with ambitious plans to make films with passion, social commentary & audience appeal.

Having worked in the film industry for almost 25 years, he has experience in both production and post production, and has worked all over the world. Since 2010 he has been a head of department greensman, specializing in designing & constructing natural scenery for films of all budgets, working with directors such as Denis Villenueve, JA Bayona, Alex Garland, Danny Boyle & JJ Abrams to help bring their creative visions to life.

He enjoys attending film festivals around the world and seeking out challenging new work from filmmakers who deserve to have their work seen by a wider audience. In 2021, he was awarded the Esprit De Gore by the prestigious Nightmares Film Festival in recognition of his support for and contribution to independent horror. He has also written horror stories for several anthology novels, and regularly appears as a guest on various horror-centric podcasts around the globe.

Find Rich online at…

Twitter: @r_rowntree
Instagram: @richard.rowntree

Tony McHale

Tony was originally an actor, but he is best known for his work as a TV screenwriter, director and producer, with hundreds of hours of screen credits to his name. His writing credits include: “Silent Witness”, “Trial and Retribution”, “Waking The Dead”, “Dalziel and Pascoe”, “The Bill”, “Second Sight”, “Murphy’s Law”, “Dangerfield”, “Out Of Hours”, “Casualty”, “Eldorado” and his own original serials “Resort To Murder” and “Headless”.

He was one of the original team that launched “EastEnders” and was the first writer to complete over 100 episodes of the long running BBC show, becoming the show’s lead writer, story consultant and series consultant as well as directing numerous episodes. In 1999 he created the successful hospital drama “Holby City” and was the programme’s Executive Producer, Series Consultant and Lead Writer from 2006 to 2010, during which time he was the recipient of a BAFTA.

He has also developed TV series in several countries including India, Dubai, Egypt, South Africa and New Zealand, as well as writing a number of radio plays and directing a variety of theatre productions. Recently he has had two novels published, both thrillers “BECK LE STREET” and “EDGE OF CIVILISATION”, and is also the proud recipient of an Honorary Fellowship from the Rose Bruford College and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bradford.

Find Tony online at…

Website: www.tonymchale.com
Twitter:  @TonyMcHale11

festival diary

april, 2023

22apr10:30 amShow Off Your Shorts!Films and Live Q&A

22apr10:30 amMEDIA GALLERY: Showcase AShowcase

22apr1:00 pmMEDIA GALLERY: Showcase BShowcase

22apr1:00 pmChallenge: Showcase 1Showcase

22apr2:15 pmExpressionism: Showcase 2Showcase

22apr3:30 pmA Broad Spectrum: Showcase 3Showcase

22apr5:00 pmPast, Present & Future Imperfect: Showcase 4Showcase

22apr6:45 pmDrinks Reception & Awards NominationsFESTIVAL FINALE & FILM AWARDS 2023

22apr8:15 pmFisheye Film Festival FinaleFESTIVAL FINALE & FILM AWARDS 2023

april, 2023

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmShock Horror3 Genre Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmAll Things Weird and Wonderful3 Comedy Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmChoice or Destiny3 Drama Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmDark Futures3 Genre Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmConnection3 Experimental Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmInside the Box3 Drama Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmA Touch of the Absurd2 Comedy Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmMUSIC TO PANIC TOFeature Film

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmApocalypse Then?3 Genre Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmAnimation Variation6 Animation Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmOn the Record3 Documentary Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmWith Trouble in Mind3 Shorts

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmTHE HAUNTING OF THE LADY-JANEFeature Film

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmTHE HOUNDS OF DARKNESSFeature Film

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmVISITING FRIENDSFeature Film

15apr(apr 15)12:00 pm23(apr 23)12:00 pmADAPT - Inclusion, hard work and hopeFeature Film