The PORTOBELLO FILM FESTIVAL opens next weekend in London with 6 DigiCult productions featuring in one of the UK’s premiere showcases for new and emerging talent. Scour the extensive festival programme and amongst the latest Italian, Irish, Spanish and Caribbean films, you’ll find some of our best films of the last three years:

Battenberg (Stewart Comrie)
Ever Here I Be (Kate Burton)
Fixing Luka (Jessica Ashman)
Labour (Michael Keillor)
Paris/Sexy (Ruth Paxton)
Rite (Michael Pearce)

If you are interested in watching some of the best shorts on the circuit, the festival runs from 1st to 18th September at the Portobello Pop Up Cinema and Westbourne Studios – all screenings are free – and special programmes include work by new London film makers and talks/Q&A’s with top directors.

Applications are open for the Playwrights’ Studio Screenwriting Residencies in association with Binger Film Lab. Over the next 6 – 9 months, up to 12 Scottish or Scottish based writers will have the opportunity to develop a feature film script working with experienced mentors, including tutors from Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam. You’ve only got a few weeks till the deadline so get your application in.

Staged over three residential weekends in Glasgow, there will also be two public events with inspiring contributors from the world of film. Participants in the residency will take part in master classes with these speakers.

For more information visit the Playwrights’ Studio website. The screenwriting residency programme are supported by Creative Scotland’s Creative Futures programme.

Following two months of hard graft on their story, script and project ideas, Eva Riley and Tom Chick have been commissioned  by DigiCult and Creative Scotland to produce their first funded shorts with the company.

Eva’s naturalistic piece ‘Sweetheart’ tells the story of two sisters struggling with their inter-dependency and competing sexuality. And Tom’s lyrical re-telling of the traditional tale ‘Death In A Nut’ draws inspiration from the films of Bill Douglas, deftly exploring a son’s struggle with a stranger who comes to visit his ailing mother.

Congratulations to both these film-makers and commiserations to the remainder of the short film talent pool. Everyone worked hard throughout the development process: Ryan Adams, Antonia Bain, Hugh Farrell, Sam Firth, Neil Hepburn and Mark Rossi. DigiCult wishes you every success with your future film projects.

Alongside Zack Copping’s ‘Foxy and Marina‘ (in post production), ‘Sweetheart’ and ‘Death in A Nut’ complete DigiCult’s short film slate for 2011.

Congratulations to one and all! Three of DigiCult’s recent productions – Fixing Luka, Paris/Sexy and Rite – have all been selected to play the boutique but influential Branchage Film Festival in Jersey (September 22nd – 25th 2011).

From personal experience, Branchage does deliver on its hype: a young, ambitious and imaginative film festival combining cutting-edge commissions and creative programming with all that’s charming about Jersey. The festival specialises in site-specific live sound-tracking, music and film screenings, matching each to a complementary and unusual venue on the island.

If you can make the trip to the island, you will be rewarded in style.

The inaugural Van d’Or Awards in London (August 11th) was another great night for Scottish independent film. DigiCult’s Fixing Luka scooped the Best Director prize for Jessica Ashman and Best Film for Jessica and her producer Anna Odell.

Big congratulations to all the winners on the night, the nominees, organisers and sponsors including MovieScope Magazine who offered subscription and editing software packages to multiple winners. And Giles Consulting who sponsored the Best Direction award with a cash prize of £250, a princely sum in these days of economic austerity. Eat well Jessica!