The Making Waves No 6 Cinema Takeover happened in Portsmouth’s famous Historic Dockyard on the 23rd and 24th of March this year! The idea of the festival was to get young people involved and to include the audience in the festivities of screening films in an immersive, community-driven way.
The festival hosted 5 main events on Thursday, a short film competition, a networking event, and a Fashion Reimagined screening. On Friday we had the young people at motiv8 come and do a Q&A with the producer of the film County Lines, The young people of music fusion, also did a pre-screening performance before screening the film County Lines.
The short film competition was a competition between university students who created films from 3 different universities, there were 6 different films, 2 from each university; the University of Portsmouth, Southampton’s Solent University and The University of Winchester, the films shown were as follows; Project 2, The Callback, Blitz, The Julie Tapes, Hannah and Where Did We Park? The award for Best Film went to the Callback and the audience award went to Where did we Park? Each production team was given a unique handmade whale tale statue crafted by local artist James Waterfield and a £75 Pizza Express voucher.
The event was really inviting and there was a real sense of togetherness throughout the showing, people had drinks, and chats before the screening started, which was a really nice atmosphere. Something that gave the event incentive and excitement about who would win, was the awards which were sat at the front on the stage through the screening and at the end, the audience was able to participate by using a QR code to vote for their favourite!
After coming out of the screening, there was a networking event at the bar sponsored by Millstream Productions, with loads of tables laid out with sandwiches and little snacks, and everyone was mingling, it was a great chance to meet people both from the city of Portsmouth and outside of the city, there were quite a few students from Winchester there, as well as people who had come for the screening of Fashion Reimagined, overall the networking event hosted a great intersection between the competition and the film.
Entering into Fashion Reimagined, you gave your ticket to the lovely ladies at No. 6 and you were brought into the screening of the film. The film focused on two ladies who worked for a fashion company on a mission to become more sustainable and took us through the process of how our clothes are made. They visited different countries where the manufacturers were located in hopes to find a company that is completely sustainable.
Throughout the film, it shows their struggles to find this method of production and their successes. After the film, there was a bit more mingling in the bar, and a lot of discussion about whether or not people would take the sustainability pledge promoted by the film, until it was inevitably time to go home.
On Friday the night started off with being greeted at the door by the young people from Motiv8, a charity based in Portsmouth that supports at-risk youth and raises awareness about the trouble they could fall into, especially in the city. We were given cups of sweets and welcomed into the bar to take a seat ready to watch the Q&A. Megan and Rebecca from Motiv8 interviewed David Broder, the Producer of County Lines (2019), and Matt Blessed, a music leader at Music Fusion, a music-based charity for at-risk youth in Portsmouth.
After the Q&A, we all headed into the theatre where we saw performances from Matt Blessed, Kizz and Cam, 3 artists from Music Fusion, in front of the screen, before the film was shown. Everyone was excited after the music, then the lights were shut off, and the film started! County Lines is a film about a 14-year-old boy called Tyler, whose family is struggling for money, and he gets mixed up in the wrong crowd. The film raises awareness about how dangerous county lines gangs are in cities, and how easily they can be avoided. It is a very hard-hitting film, which really resonates, and was a great way to finish the festival.
Making Waves Film Festival 2023 was a great way to get the young people involved, and bring people together for a great couple of nights out at the cinema! The audience and everyone who was involved in helping make this happen truly deserves a massive thanks for making this year great! Here’s to next year being equally as great!
By Amelie Harvey
