The Pocket Films Festival celebrates the art of making movies with camera phones. It’s been running for two years now and has got to be the strangest example of the festival craze going. Still, if you like staring at a 2 inch screen for an hour or more, this should be right up your street. Watch out Cannes!
Japan’s first attempt at the Pocket Films Festival is based on a partnership between the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and the Forum des images of Paris which has staged numerous audio-visual events including special feature screenings of as many as 1,000 films a year, in addition to organizing the Pocket Films Festival since 2005. Although we are inheriting from them the “esprit” of Paris, the center of the film world, and the format of a film festival where films shot with a mobile phone are screened as works of art, we are also keen to develop a set of plans for our festival that are unique to Japan.
Interesting – and there is no need to be so dismissive! :) Phone video technology is improving enormously, especially in areas that have taken the lead such as East Asia – no surprise at all that Japan has taken up the mantle. It will be really interesting to see what the quality’s like at this year’s Festival.
Heh, OK I hereby chastise myself. :-) It’s pretty cool I suppose, and as you say will get better with time.