Heartstrings
Although Exposures is a nationwide festival there was also a strong local presence; the festival is partnered with the University of Salford and included two films from the University of Manchester, three from Manchester Metropolitan University, two from Salford and one from the Manchester College. After three days of great films at the Cornerhouse for its grand finale Exposures moved to Urbis for a full blown awards ceremony, complete with celebrity presenters including Shameless and State of Play writer (and University of Manchester graduate) Paul Abbot, the director of the acclaimed documentaries Unknown White Male and The End of the Line Rupert Murray, and Shameless star David Threlfall, all thoroughly inebriated due to the buckets of free Corona at every table.
Lift
After a unique introduction from Abott, “the standard of entries was just fucking brilliant”, first up was the Best Animation award which was taken home by the aforementioned Heartstrings. More conventional fare was on offer from Prick, directed by Ryan Vernava from the University of Westminster, a typical, if well-executed tale of a student love triangle which was honoured with the Best Live Action award. Unlike your normal awards ceremony however speeches were few and far between although when they did come they ranged from the offhand (“thanks everyone, this is a really nice piece of glass” was Waiting for Women director Estephan Wagner’s low-key response to winning Best Documentary) to the heartfelt; when Manchester triumph came in the form of hitchhiking documentary Lift by Man Met student Nathan Rae winning the Best of the North Award, he thanked “all the people who picked me up while hitchhiking, without them we would have no film at all.” While there were also honours for Sheffield Hallam University student Guillermo Ibanez whose film Paula won Best Post-Production and William Macgregor, a student at the University of the Creative Arts who won Best Cinematography for Who’s Afraid of the Water Sprite; the standout film of the festival was undoubtedly Stuck on the Edge by Goldmsiths student Jennifer Fearnley, a moving and amusing contemplation on aging starring a 101-year-old woman named Mavis, which won the Programmers’ Choice Award, the Audience Award and shared the grand Jury Prize with Heartstrings.
The winners with their awards
So Exposures, a great festival and if you missed it, you missed out? Not quite, being student films many of the award winners are available to watch online if you know where to look and there is a DVD of the festival scheduled for release in the very near future. If all else fails, there’s always next year.
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