Instant Cinematic Classic

I have been eagerly awaiting this film to come up on the screening room since it absolutely floored me in the Dunedin heats. For a new team to come up into the competition this fully formed, ticking all my personal boxes for what I'm looking for in a 48 hours film, most definitely consider me blown away by what they filmed here.
Make no mistake, this is THE film from Dunedin this year that I see on the potential grand final list, a confident, beautiful, pulsating film that oozes a love of cinema through its veins and breaks down the door to celebrate the new blood coming through. I'm still giddy thinking about how absolutely amazingly you interpreted the gatekeeper element.

For those playing along at home you might be interested in what I loved about the film so much. Well we've got the film within a film element first of all, with regal decor of a classic cinema calling to mind FADE TO BLACK and CINEMA PARADISO, but portrayed with such visual flourish that you could feel the warm rich oak aromas and velvet curtains infiltrating your senses as you watched.

Then there's the storyline itself, as 2 young filmmakers are desperate to show off their self-made film to a director they idolise at his premiere, not to steal the limelight but to pay respect, and getting buy ins all along the way with a theme that art is all about 'taking a chance'

The gatekeeping brilliance? Very much a case of showcasing how cinemas like to keep things big scale, emphasise the grandiose and never give a chance to the small team. Do we maybe even do this with 48 Hours? Really had me thinking.... Yet the team had the bravado to not only call but deliver a 'Instant Cinematic Classic'. You have my sword because your confidence was incredible with amazingly written and believable characters.

The edit was slick yet perfectly placed, costuming and characters well defined, the lighting (that shot towards the end, you know, THE ONE...wow) and camerawork superb (my minor nitpick was a slight reliance on focus pulling from slight out of frame to focus in static shots), music perfectly placed, sound crystal clear and it was genuinely a sweet, uplifting film.

One of my immediate favourite 48 Hours films of all time <3

Story: 5/5
Technical: 4.5/5
Elements: 5/5
Overall: 5/5