Making its first return to Mareel outside of Screenplay on Friday 6th September, the absence of the festival did not lead to any reduction in enthusiasm amongst Shetland’s film makers for creating their works for the big screen – a massive thirty-five were submitted, out of which twenty-nine were screened; and what a diverse bunch of films they turned out to be. The HomeMade rules are simple – film makers must be Shetlanders by birth or residency, and the films must be no longer than four minutes.
This year there were police procedurals (Soren Drever and Mara-Lise Riddell), documentaries (Islesburgh Photographic Club), film poems (Sarah Stickle, Alex Purbrick, and Amber Grieve), action and adventure (Louis Hamilton), romance and bromance (Kyja Masterman), artist moving image (Susan Pearson, Roxane Permar and Berenice Carrington), supernatural transformations (Ethan Strachan and Emily Garriock, Charis-Mia and Tyra-Jai Goodlad), magnificent obsessions (JJ Jamieson , Stuart Hannay and Eve Christie), animation (Andy Anderson and Stuart Hubbard), lost loves (Haydn Brown, Sophie Johnson and Alfie Boyes), commissioned promotional product (Stephen Mercer), music video (Lowrie Mouat), unlikely friendships (Kayden Gair), mysterious trowie visitations (Haydn Brown, Kirsti Tomlinson, Freyja and Astryd Sim), daring experimentation (Emma Coutts) and some that gloriously defied genre altogether (Logan Nicolson, Tirval Scott, Stephen Ferguson, Andy Martin and Martha Robertson).
This year also saw a bumper crop of eight dialect films in a range of genres, something which Shetland Arts and Shetland ForWirds found very encouraging.
Member of the HomeMade Team, Kathy Hubbard said “What we found particularly exciting this year was the prevalence of young film makers, some very young indeed – under ten years old! Many of the youth entrants have submitted films before and evidence of the development of their craft was plain to see for those in the audience who have been coming to HomeMade over the years.”
Sally was not the only maker to receive two awards this year. Runners up for both the Dialect Prize and the Audience Award were Eve Christie, with Kishie, her sensitive portrait of basket maker Leslie Smith, and Haydn Brown and Kirsti Tomlinson for their hilarious ‘Indiana Jones’-style account of a sacred quest, A Shetlander’s Travel for a Can. Haydn was also runner-up for the Audience Award, with a story of what happens when a man loves his tractor and his wife and the two loves collide in Tractor Fan.
Shetland Arts commented that “Since its inception in 2007, HomeMade has been there to entertain, for sure, but it has also been there to encourage the development of filmmaking in Shetland. With entries from first time makers, hobbyists, students, graduates and professionals this year, the development journey is clearly set to continue. We’d like to thank everyone who continues to support that process, whether by making films, helping others to make films or coming along to watch them and cheer them on.”
