In conjunction with the Groundlings Theatre Trust in Portsea, Portsmouth, TrashArts Productions, an arts collective that has been running for the past 15 years, is proud to announce the launch of a new film festival in Portsmouth, called the Pompeywood Genre Film Festival.
The Festival is described as ‘genre’ and Festival Director Sam Mason Bell explains “TrashArts is mainly known for making horror films, as well as other arts activities including open microphone nights at local community venues, so we wanted to create a film festival that focused on that specific genre, but was also open to entries for other film genres”.
The Film Festival is aimed at short films lasting no more than 15 minutes and is inviting filmmakers across the world to submit any short film, whether live action or animation, and fiction or factual, for the screenings that will take place in the Groundling Theatre in October 2022.
Sam continued “There is a great history of independent filmmaking in Portsmouth, with a principal exponent of the craft being the late Michael J Murphy. His films were made in a time when filmmaking by small, unfunded, independent filmmakers was considerably harder than it is now, so we want to use the Festival to highlight his work as well as the great films being made today”. Part of the Film Festival will be to screen feature films, specially invited to screen at the event, and tickets to the weekend of screenings will be available from the Groundlings Theatre box office. Of course, the Film Festival also takes its name from the strong film community that already exists in Portsmouth, known colloquially as ‘Pompeywood’, an amalgam of ‘Pompey’, the historical nickname for Portsmouth, and ‘Hollywood’.
The Groundlings Theatre was originally built as a Beneficial School and the first free school in Portsmouth. Festival Administrator Martin W Payne explains that “the ethos of the Pompeywood film festival is to encourage as many filmmakers as possible to submit their short films for screening and so entry fees have been kept very low and the ticket prices for the screening sessions will also be kept as low as possible. We aim to encourage filmmakers from across the UK and the world to submit their work but there is a special focus on local films from Hampshire”.
An Awards Ceremony will be held on the final evening with awards for the best performance, best film, best sound, and best makeup amongst others. One of the final awards to be decided will be the ‘Audience Choice Best Film’.
Entries to the Pompeywood Genre Film Festival are now open and all filmmakers are encouraged to submit their short film via the Festivals website entry process at:
https://filmfreeway.com/PompeywoodGenreFilmFestival
