The Lurhman Brothers

This was by far the creepiest film of our heat, and I would argue one of the most stylistic. I loved the atmosphere that the film created, and it could easily be mistaken for an art piece or long-forgotten New Zealand archive. This is a slow burn film, but the pay off is worth it!

This is great. Really absorbing throughout it's runtime with excellence pacing. While the very flat narration gives as all the details, the imagery from sourced, created and manipulated images really add to the intrigue - it's a fascinating story that has been crafted here.

A very different 48HR approach that will have many people wondering if this actually is a true story or not.

really fun take on a Lovecraftian Horror! Really impressive production design.
Has the feel like an animation, of something that was a bit more planned out before the weekend - sourcing everything and making the planned film work with whatever the variables were. But that's another way of saying it was cohesive and polished. Could easily play this outside the context of 48 and no one would know.

I can't wait for this to be released so I can watch it again. Horror mockumentary is a STRONG genre to apply and this team did it so well. Effectively built up a palpable tension with narrative subtlety and unanswered questions that left the audience making up our own creepy interpretations. The last image had me CREEPED OUT and is still in my brain. Archival-looking imagery was really fun and well done.

So I was so blown away by this film (my review book has this a 4.5/5 or 5/5) that I was genuinely curious how on earth you made the film. And then I saw the credits "Images, Datasets and Collages are sourced from Archival Imagery from Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa" and holy fuck you guys must be rolling because I saw $600 per image for commercial use! With the public archive being explicitly for non commercial use. Kind of made me sad because I'd have loved to have made a film like this.

Or am I a dummy here? Did you manipulate and or generate all that archived imagery yourself in the space of a weekend?

If so this might be the greatest 48 hours film of all time.

Honestly as a film I absolutely loved this effort. It was unique, chilling, gripping, riveting and haunting. A proper story unraveled through photographs and narration. Pieced together so beautifully it sent shivers down my spine.

But really would genuinely love to pick your brains how you put this together from a technical or image use point of view.

National Co-Manager Ruth Korver here. I just want to confirm that images in this film are all from Te Papa and are all in the public domain with no copyright restrictions.
Many archives in Aotearoa have imagery available for use with no restrictions and we love seeing teams use these kinds of resources to create their films.

This is the good stuff. From the moment it began I was entranced, and I think I could have watched for a full 90 minutes. I really couldn't ask for more than this out of a 5-minute short, let alone one made in 48 hours.

Aesthetically wonderful, totally intriguing, and tonally pitch-perfect with the kind of build-up and payoff that made me go back and watch a couple more times. Fantastic work. Can't wait to see more from you all!

I have issues with this film...

...I want it to be 10x longer and I want that mood and tone to be part of a bigger story!!!!
As soon as the film starts it feels like you're in the hands of confident and capable film-makers.
The selected imagery is perfection to the tone and story and the building dread.

My only gripe - and sorry for inserting my preferences on your art - is it felt like the start of a larger film rather than a film in its own right. Had there been a wider context this would be S-tier. For now its just s-teir:)

Potentially my favourite film of the 2024 comp.