Image from The Blood Sisters’ 2013 entry “The Red Shoes”
The 48-Hour Tasploitation Challenge invites filmmakers to Hobart for a weekend of creativity and carnage!
Registered teams will make a short film – including writing, shooting, editing and scoring - over a 48-hour period from 7 pm Friday 22 January to 7 pm Sunday 24, 2016.
After sell-out successes in 2013 and 2014 the popular 48-Hour “Tasploitation” Challenge returns in January 2016.
The Challenge is a national contest requiring teams to make a film while in the Hobart geographical area, with both interstate and local filmmakers encouraged to participate.
Teams must complete a short film (of up to 6 minutes) – including writing, shooting, editing and scoring – over a 48-hour period. The films should be loosely within the horror genre, although interpretations of this may vary wildly.
This year the Challenge timeframe is from 7 pm Friday 22 January until 7 pm on Sunday 24 January, with the films to be screened on Monday 25 January (the day before the Australia Day public holiday).
The Challenge is open to both amateur and professionals, with prizes to be awarded recognising strengths from technical skills to concept to use of Tasmania as a location. There will also be a prize for a filmmaker or team under the age of 16.
After meeting at a designated location in the CBD, the teams will be personally handed their “prompt” package at 7 pm on the Friday night. This will include three things: a sub-genre of horror, a prop and a line of dialogue. All three must be incorporated into the final film.
The films will debut at a gala screening on Monday January 25, 2016. The films will then go online (hosted privately on the Stranger With My Face website) for a limited period of 30 days, with select film programmers and producers invited to view them. After this time the filmmakers are free to enter their films in other competitions and festivals as desired, or make them publicly available on the SWMF website.
“It’s really important to us that the filmmakers retain the rights to their films,” says organiser Briony Kidd. “They’re the ones putting the blood, sweat and tears into this whole enterprise, and we want them to get as much out of them as they possibly can.”
The Challenge’s ethos is to encourage experimentation and boldness, while working loosely within a genre framework.
In 2016 the Tasploitation Challenge Jury will include:
- award-winning filmmaker and renowned “Ozploitation” aficionado Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood, Electric Boogaloo, Patrick)
- award-winning genre filmmaker Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones, The Devil’s Candy), a Tasmanian who has recently released his second feature film to acclaim on the festival circuit
- writer, publisher and international genre festival programmer Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women)
- filmmaker Fiona McConaghy, whose recent credits include producing the webseries Noirhouse and as line producer on the upcoming Foxtel drama series The Kettering Incident
Prizes include $1000 in cash for the winning team. That film will also be screened during the Stranger With My Face International Film Festival in April 2016.
Other prizes include:
- A $300 gear hire voucher from Wide Angle Tasmania
- profiles of the winning teams on influential genre website Shock Til You Drop
- VIP passes to the Stranger With My Face International Film Festival
Wide Angle Tasmania has also offered an equipment hire discount to the value of 50 % off for any past or present Wide Angle member who is registered for the 2016 Tasploitation Challenge.
The 2013 Tasploitation Challenge winner, Ravenous by Carmen Falk, recently debuted as one of the segments of the feature film anthology A Night of Horror Vol. 1. Another notable project is The Red Shoes, later made into a music video for Miz Ima Starr’s My Heart’s A Drummer. There have been boundary-pushing “art” films, strange and quirky comedies and chilling tales of suspense,some of which can be viewed here.
2016 marks the first year the Tasploitation Challenge has been split off from the Stranger With My Face Festival into its own event, but the two events remain part of the same SWMF family.
SWMF’s ideology of promoting the work of women in the film industry is also carried over into the Tasploitation Challenge, in several key ways: there will always be at least a 50% proportion of female judges for the competition, and films that engage with gender in an interesting way will be eligible for the Barbara Creed Award, named after the pioneering Australian horror scholar and author of The Monstrous Feminine (1993).
Registration for the Tasploitation Challenge is open from now until 10 January, with more information about judges and prizes to be released soon.
THE 48-Hour TASPLOITATION CHALLENGE 2016
REGISTRATIONS OPEN VIA THIS LINK http://www.strangerwithmyface.com/tasploitation-challenge-registration/
(from 13 December until 10 January 2024)
NETWORKING DRINKS FOR HOBART TEAMS:
6 pm Thursday, 7 January 2024
Grand Poobah, 142 Liverpool Street, Hobart
CHALLENGE SHOOT COMMENCES:
7 pm, Friday 22 January
CHALLENGE SHOOT ENDS:
7 pm on Sunday, 24 January 2024
AWARDS NIGHT AND SCREENING:
25 January 2024
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Inquiries:
Contact:
Briony Kidd
Stranger With My Face International Film Festival
Email: tasploitation@strangerwithmyface.com
Phone: +61 408 376 045
MORE INFORMATION
About the Tasploitation 48-Hour Challenge
The 48-Hour “Tasploitation” Challenge was initiated in 2013, funded by a small grant from Events Tasmania. The Tasploitation Challenge proved immediately popular with audiences and filmmakers alike, and returned to again be part of SWMF in 2014. The concept of “Tasploitation” is a mash-up of the words “Tasmania” and “exploitation” and refers to a style of filmmaking and/or marketing that was created to allow independent films to compete with their bigger budget counterparts. In this sense, “exploitation” can refer to exploiting a film’s subject in a salacious or sensational way that is meant to attract a populist audience, or to refer to films that are marketed in such a way – even though the film itself might be more serious in its aims. In the context of this competition, filmmakers are encouraged to interpret the concept however they wish, and may work in horror or other genres (eg. fantasy, sci-fi, experimental, crime). One of the prizes awarded, the Tasmaniana Award, is for the film that most interestingly or amusingly incorporates a specifically Tasmanian aspect (whether a location, an idea or a tone). This prize is designed to encourage filmmakers to engage with the location in which they are shooting.
The Tasploitation Challenge is open to filmmakers of all genders, amateur and professional alike, and has been one of the more “grassroots” aspects of the SWMF festival. It has proven to be a galvanising force for the local film community and has resulted in many exciting collaborations, in some cases being the impetus for a new filmmaker’s first foray into production. In 2016 the organisers are keen to encourage both experienced and newbie filmmakers to get involved.
About Stranger With My Face International Film Festival
Stranger With My Face International Film Festival is based in Hobart, Tasmania, founded by filmmakers Briony Kidd and Rebecca Thomson. Deriving its name from the young adult novel by Lois Duncan, it explores the idea of ‘the horror within’ and promotes discussion around genre and gender, from ghost stories to gore, from art house to exploitation. SWMF has a focus on female directors working in horror and related genres and aims to highlight bold new work by independent filmmakers. Stranger With My Face is a founding member of the Women’s Alliance of Fantastic Film Festivals (WAFFF), along with Etheria Film Night (Los Angeles), Tokyo Scream Queens Film Festival and Ax Wound Film Festival (Brattleboro). It was voted in the Top 5 Coolest Women’s Film Festivals in the world by Movie Maker Magazine in 2013 and guest filmmaker Jennifer Lynch (Chained, The Walking Dead) described it as follows:
“Nothing short of magical. It was transformative for me. I think what is being done there, and celebrated there and made possible as a result, is the best I have seen at any fest… I want to be there every year.”
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