Wednesday, October 28, 2015

The First Annual UK Web Festival: UK Web Fest Sunday 25th October 2015

The First Annual UK Web Festival: UK Web Fest Sunday 25th October 2015

Reviewed by Gail Spencer

Setting the scene, the first UK Web Festival showcasing the best of the series that shake and move on digital platforms, was given its theatrical outing at The Prince Charles Cinema in the heart of London's West End.  This little and much loved theatre historically has been the home of the cult, the brave and Avant Guard for the best part of a quarter century, if not longer. More recently screening all nighters of varying directors and actors of note, it is the best place to show an all day event devoted to the new and up and coming. The fest is to showcase in other cities across the UK and Northern Ireland, 69 in total.  A brave and noble - as well as potentially exhausting ambition. 

Given how difficult it is to acquire funding for features, the short, or the web series may well be the chosen format for new directors to make their mark and this was an eclectic mix chosen from all over the world.  Unusually presented by a professional compere, unheard of and hitherto not experienced in any festival attended by this writer, this cut the strands nicely into segments which made the day travel painlessly, the norm is the opposite. The series episodes were selected by those submitted, and from the point of view of the viewer, of those screened - like with any other screenings, it is important to note the talent among the submissions. The question hanging in the air is if this format and mode of delivery is going to be any the fairer or accessible to new talent than the feature presentation put across via traditional means. Download to Own and Video On Demand have been with us for some time: more appealing as ways and means to the technical - phone obsessed generation. What came across loud and clear is that this is a youth market. 

Some of the offerings however were very aware of the historic mores of genre in presenting parodies of that gone before: The Pantsless Detective (USA) using the imagery, style and language of old school noir, the delightful and very funny Big Shots Series (France) left the horror and comic genres in tatters literally with the silhouette animations of the well loved franchises tearing each other apart. More of this would be more than welcome and the best of that on offer gave rise to the notion that to move forward, web series directors and storytellers should still look back. Surprisingly, given the values and tastes of the youth market, the horror as drama was not present.

2020: The Series was a Science Fiction par excellence with a technophobic tale of Cronenbergian proportions: the future has us all wearing contact lenses with our immediate selves dealing with virtual choices in social media pointing fingers into space 'liking' and 'choosing' at random. ELBA - Napoleon's Legacy mixed the Sci-fi with the historic, unsurprisingly from Italy. Cam Girls (USA) was creepy, as was the intent in depicting the dark side of web cam based voyeurism: the internet based dating covered in the funny How to be Gay with the voyeurism here - the audience sharing the fly on the wall mockumentary. Cupid - a UK outing was a skit on the speed date, mocking the despairing and the desperate. Wannabes acutely satirised the world of the am dram student - the lead in this instance 'Felicity' displaying a richly self aware performance in depicting the poor duck acutely devoid of self awareness. 

The stand outs of the day were four pieces that had the potential, qualities and style to be taken seriously in the vein of narrative, acting, structure and pace. The Invisible Man (USA) was very self knowing in its homage to the 1950s outings of the same name. Brought into a modern context but with all the hysteria of the era from whence it came, the central and supporting characters were engaging and funny. This could hold its own as a series - though The Film Lab (Aust) works in the same way as did the incredibly wonderful season of geek depictions on testing urban myths, scientifically.  This was less of a series than a couple of teasing set pieces posing questions on film questions (such as can directors work better with a beard), comes out of the same school of thought that poses 'do men who look like Kenny Rogers make better Dads? This would be the cult item and could and should be run as cinema ads in the 'Don't' mock trailer style given to us via the cine literacy of Tarrantino for the Grindhouse Double Bill. The First Musketeer (UK/France) was an historic drama with evident thought love and care, not to mention high production values and all of the usual needs of plush historic drama were on show with a credits list that ran nearly as long as the short. The narrative was tight and dialogue delivered with an eye on period but without a hint of stilt.

The finest in terms of doing its genre service and giving a nod to the past, was 'Wallflowers.' Post Friends the plight of the singleton in the city may appear to have no further territory to cover, though the bed hopping ways, the pathos and the ineptitude of those seeking solace comes in a timely fashion to cinema goers in the wake of The Lobster a drama where we - the loner and the lonely are placed in the context of a group forced to couple. The story with Wallflowers though follows in much the same dramatic context as did the 'Dear John' series shown in the 1980s, with Ralph Bates playing the lead at a singles support group getting together at a community centre for a weekly pep talk by a deranged leader. In secret the singles couple and in doing so fail to embrace their singledom in the way the mentor dictates, the acts of wanton defiance though being more that than out of genuine love and need for it. Wallflowers was pitch perfect in showing, and doing just what is says on the tin, providing a good look at those who are not asked to dance and does so with quality, style and class. 

Of the items chosen here, the plush and satisfying First Musketeer won an award for best UK web series, Wannabes, and 2020 were chosen also, so it would appear though this is a new area for most reviewers……a new judgment criteria isn't necessarily needed.  The first UK Web Fest is a breath of fresh air, with a look towards new talent and the heart and brains to give it a needed platform.



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