The Fokus Film showcases the most creative video content created by students in the McGill community. The festival was inaugurated in 2006 with the intention of providing students a means of displaying their artistic cinematography. The festival is held in the spacious Cinema du Parc theatre, with a capacity of 250! Films are divided into 5 categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Animation, Experimental, and 72 Hour. Last year's three-hour screening boasted 19 original submissions and 3 entries from the 72-hour filmmaking competition. This year, Fokus is anticipating an exciting array of work from McGill's creative community and seeks to reach more students than ever before.
|
FOKUS FILM FESTIVAL 2010
March 25 at Cinema du Parc
6PM; Tickets $7
For any questions, please contact vpexternal@tvmcgill.com
Download the Festival Application form
Download the 72-Hour Application form
Categories
- Experimental
- Fiction
- Non-fiction
- Animation
72-Hour Film Competition
Challenge: Create a film under 5 minutes within a 72-hour time slot about a given subject. March 12 - 15
Important Dates
Monday, March 15
All submissions and applications due
Friday, March 12
72-Hour Film Competition starts
Monday, March 15
72-Hour Film Competition ends
Thursday, March 25
FOKUS Film Festival
Our Partners
 
|
BYEGONE MOONAGE
by Jane Penny
 An enigmatic sci-fi short shot on grainy Super 8mm film, depicting the bad trip of two friends – a spaceman and a robot – who get high by filling tin cups with black goo and smearing it on their ears. The spaceman then persuades his friend to take a walk outside, where the pair is assaulted by a gang of dancing, music-playing space creatures, who pummel their victims like the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, leaving the robot dead. The old-school sci-fi sets and eerie soundtrack give the tragedy an eerie poignancy. Still, a more developed story wouldn’t have hurt.
– Dan Gurin McGill Daily |
Behind the Magic School Bus
by Kale Stockwell & Ev Snow
 This mockumentary, based on the children’s book and cartoon series, consists of two interviews with former “actors” from the show, now aged 26. In exaggerated slang, Keisha explains how her mean-street origins prepared her for exploring the human body – “everyone was tripping out in the esophagus [but] where I’m from I seen shit way rougher than peristaltic motion.” Arnold, the student always reluctant to participate in the class’s adventures – his catchphrase was, “I knew I should have stayed home today” – is now in a mental institute. Both performances are pretty funny, although some of the jokes about sex, drugs, and violence are a bit generic.
– Dan Gurin McGill Daily |
Dinowar
by Catherine Howells
 The strange combination of deafening heavy metal, a serene foresty landscape, and plastic dinosaurs in this short is oddly fantastic. In a fast-paced stop animation, a battle breaks out in a grass patch between the little green army figures and the plastic dinosaurs. I don’t want to give away who wins, but the world would probably be very different had the outcome been otherwise.
– Veronica French McGill Daily |
Your League a League for You
by Rupert Common & Katie Burrell
 Your League is a non-fiction mockumentary, chronicling a mentor relationship between two officials of the McGill intramural basketball league. The film’s two writers play the starring roles, and parody their own earnestness. Lines like “I like exercise...a lot,” and Rupert Common’s explanation of how he lost his whistle, bought a new one, and then found his old one capture the film’s deadpan humour. At first we might wonder, “Is this girl for real?” as Katie Burrell gushes about her job. But on-court trash-talking like “What is this, Airbud?” clears up any uncertainty, and lets us enjoy the film for the joke that it is.
– Whitney Mallet McGill Daily |
Pura Vida!
by Adrienne Ho
 Pura Vida! is a non-fiction short documenting the travels of a few good Samaritan girls in San Carlos, Costa Rica. The girls volunteer at an elderly home and divide their time between folding laundry, playing card games, and preparing Christmas meals. There are shots of animated drawings from the narrator and interviews with the program organizers. The story is sweet and, dare I say, inspirational, filled with anecdotes, lots of rice and beans, and appropriate guitar music.
– Veronica French McGill Daily |
|
