Daniel Chisholm won big at DepicT! last year - Watershed's annual super short filmmaking competition. Last September he took home two awards (the DepicT! Special Mention and DepicT! Shooting People Award) for his short film Nati, set in Italy:

We last caught up with Daniel in January and heard about how filming was going for the feature length version of his winning short.

In this, his latest update, Daniel reports back on the Berlinale Film Festival and talks us through the new short film he's making for 2015's Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, where this year's DepicT! winners will be announced.

DepicT! '15 is now open for submissions. Send us your short films of 90 seconds or less - for free! No matter the genre, budget or style, you can be in with a chance of winning up to £2,500 in cash prizes as well as priceless industry exposure and career development opportunities.

Hear from one of last year's winners and see what all the fuss is about...

DepicT! '14 Seven Months On - by Daniel Chisholm

"February and March have been busy! A new short I hope to submit to Encounters ’15 is in the final editing stages, almost ready for sound and grade; the edit of the feature is continuing apace; my new and improved showreel and website are up and running; and in between I managed to watch about 30-odd films and attend various networking events at the Berlinale Film Festival... phew!

My biggest takeaway from the Berlinale (apart from watching lots of inspiring films) was a renewed enthusiasm for attending festivals and the opportunities they present - there really is no better way to get your work out there and meet great people and potential collaborators. That’s why I’m so keen to attend Encounters 2015 and why I would recommend to anyone interested in filmmaking to submit for DepicT! and / or Encounters this year - it is such a great festival with a brilliant vibe and last year I came away feeling refreshed and in love with film again.

Unsurprisingly, the short I’m working on for Encounters this year is also about farmers in Italy - this time it focusses on the ‘raccolta’: the olive harvest. It features two brilliant characters: Augusto and Vanda, who are olive farmers and friends of Nati’s. They are wonderful people, who have witnessed a lot of change in their time, and who have gone through a lot of hardship, but who can still laugh about it all and evidently manage to enjoy life, no matter what it throws at them. If you’re thinking of submitting to either DepicT! or Encounters, I’d highly recommend you find yourself characters like these guys and let them do the talking - I personally find there’s nothing as gripping in a film as a good character, be it fictional or real.

Augusto and Vanda will of course feature in the full-length film I am working on, alongside Nati and a host of other charismatic farmers. I am planning to shoot some pickups in the summer, but until then I want to really have a good crack at the edit and get something on the timeline that feels like a feature film.

I am now booked on a course at the NFTS in June entitled “Financing Your Feature Film” (one of the prizes that I won at DepicT! last year) and I can’t wait to attend! It promises to be a very useful course and I will definitely report back once I’ve been.

Anyway, I need to get back to my edit in order to hit the submission deadline for Encounters...

Until next time, and good luck to all of you who are submitting!"

Dan

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