The New Haven branch of the international moviemaking competition 48 Hour Film Project begins its season on Sunday, June 26, at a meet-and-greet at the Regal Beagle restaurant, 422 State St. in New Haven.
Aspiring filmmakers from anywhere can go to brunch at the restaurant from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., meet event organizers, get information about the event and possibly find a filmmaking team to join.
The filmmaking weekend will be Friday to Sunday, July 29 to 31. Filmmaking teams meet at the Outer Space Ballroom, 295 Treadwell St. in Hamden, from 6 to 7 p.m. on July 29. Each team draws two genres out of a hat, and then picks one.
“It used to be that you’d pick one genre and if you didn’t like it you could trade it in for wild card. The new rule for this year is that you pick two genres. You can choose from those two. There is no wild card,” says Patricia Clark, the organizer of the New Haven event.
Each film also must have three elements — a character, prop and line of dialogue — specific to New Haven’s event. Those elements are announced when the genres are chosen.
“That, along with the genre that they pick out of the hat, ensures that the filming takes place over the … weekend,” Clark says.
After the genre picks, each team has 48 hours to write, cast, shoot, edit and finish a movie 4 to 7 minutes in length. The films must be turned in at the Outer Space between 5 and 8 p.m. on July 31.
48 Hour Film Project was founded 16 years ago and now is in 150 cities worldwide. This is the sixth year New Haven has participated. The winning New Haven film from 2015, “Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop,” was shown this year in the Court Métrage segment of the Cannes Film Festival. You can watch it here.
“Every city winner goes on to screen at Filmapalooza in March, which is sort of the ’48 Oscars,’ their own gathering,” Clark says. “They compete with each other for best of the year. Twelve to 15 movies, the best film of the year and several others, move on to Cannes.”
The New Haven films will be shown Aug. 3 and possibly Aug. 4 (depending on the number of entries) at Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. in New Haven. This will be the first time entries will be seen by the judges and the public. The best-of will be shown on Aug. 25 at Criterion Cinemas, at the corner of Temple and George streets in New Haven. An awards ceremony will take place Aug. 25 at the Outer Space.
Filmmakers will choose one genre from one group and another genre from another group. Group one includes action/adventure, comedy, coming of age, dark comedy, drama, fantasy, “film de femme” (a film featuring a strong female character), holiday, horror, musical, road movie, romance, sci-fi, silent film and western. Group two includes adventure serial, animal film, buddy film, cop/detective, fable, family film, fish out of water, martial arts, mystery, period piece, slapstick, sports film, superhero, time travel and war/antiwar.
Filmmaking groups must have at least one member who is local to represent the team in the pickup and drop-off, but all team members don’t have to be from here.
The cost to sign up is $140 for early-bird (until July 5), $160 for regular registration until July 19 and $175 for the last two weeks before the event.
For details, visit 48hourfilm.com/new-haven-ct.
