Premiering in Copenhagen today is a series of sci-fi shorts, all part of the CPH PIX Movie Battle. The theme for the short films is time travel.
Founded by film director Shaky Gonzaléz in 2004, the Movie Battle is CPH PIX’s section where Denmark’s underground film making scene tests their muscles in genre cinema. Previous themes include supernatural horror and post-apocalyptism. This year the theme is time travel, loosely defined, and 6 short films lasting up to 17 minutes have entered the competition. Four awards will be given out; Best Film, Best Actor Performance, Best SFX, and the Movie Battle Audience Award. The jury will this year be Lene Børglum (executive producer, Valhalla Rising), Anders Ølholm (screenwriter, Antboy), Martin Schmidt (director, Final Hour and Monster Busters), Maria Månson (journalist and TV host) and Robert Hansen (actor).
The short films and their directors are:
- Momentum by Svend Plough Johansen
- Inmate 48 by Sohail A. Hassan
- Det Rette Øjeblik by Casper Gätke
- Enjoy the Ride by Mette Hougård Sixhøj and NC Sixhøj
- Timewaves by Jan T. Jensen
- Forfra by Alexander Nørgaard and Jesper Pedersen
Inmate 48 refers to a
violent prisoner who is once again placed in isolation. When the warden warns him of the consequences, he is completely unaffected and claims the prison bars can’t hold him anymore, and threatens to kill the warden. Thinking that the inmate is delusional, the warden prepares to have him sent off to the insane asylum. The prison psychiatrist finds nothing wrong with the inmate and he suddenly starts to behave himself. The warden finds this new self assurance and calmness unsettling. He knows that this inmate up to something and is determined to stop him.
The short films will only be shown tonight at the Movie Battle, which takes place at 9.30 pm at the Nordisk Film Palads theatre in Copenhagen. A DVD release by the battle’s sponsor, Another World Entertainment, was expected but AWE informs that they are not planning a release this time.
CPH PIX is not only about amateur short films; aside from William Friedkin receiving a Lifetime Achivement award and a concert by Dario Argento’s musical providers Goblin, and many other events, several feature films will also be shown; The Raid 2, The Zero Theorem and Dead Snow 2 among them, but also Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, an 1989 shot-for-shot fan remake produced over a seven-year period by three Mississippi teenagers, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb.
CPH PIX is a film festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. The festival, which has been held since 2009, resulted from the merger in 2008 of the Copenhagen International Film Festival and the NatFilm Festival to create an organisation called Copenhagen Film Festivals, which also manages the documentary film festival CPH DOX and the Buster Film Festival for children and young people. CPH PIX takes place annually, and spans 14 days in the middle of April.
Update: Sohail A. Hassan “cleaned the table” and won three of the four awards; Best Film, Best Actor Performance (Morten Thunbo), and the Movie Battle Audience Award. The award for special effects went to Det Rette Øjeblik by Casper Gätke.
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