| Profile : Paul Bradshaw | Paul is a photographer providing images for the Nottingham Evening Post, the Leicester Mercury and City Life magazine among others. He grew up in Clifton but now lives in West Bridgford and in his spare time provides vocals and guitar for the 4-piece progressive rock outfit "Shatner's Bassoon". He is a film-maker and has also worked on the feature films "24/7" and "One for the Road" both shot in and around Nottingham. "I've moved around a bit, living in London, Vancouver and Seattle (also Stoke on Trent!) but I love Nottingham, it's got a great mix of "big-city" glitz but has retained it's gruff charm." |
Bang! Film Festival Sunday 30th January, Broadway Cinema Bang! Short Film Festival, now in it's fifth year, has built a solid reputation for showing original short films from emerging local, national and international talent, and last night's showing of the thrice-yearly event proved to be a particularly strong line-up. Bang! is always a smorgasbord of styles and tastes (a bang-quet if you will) and on last night's menu was everything from computer animation to avant-garde dance. Among the highlights was Dena Smiles' "Holy Cow" or "Guy Noo Bhajan", a BBC funded Bollywood short that combined humour, livestock and dance sequences to dazzling effect. Dena's lightness of touch and understanding of genre ensured a potentially absurd premise was elevated into an uplifting fable. "Holy Cow" was shot in Nottingham and featured a predominantly local cast and crew and is to be shown imminently on BBC3. But there was much else here to admire. The beauty of Bang! is that it's non-competitive, non-restrictive of genre and consequently there is work from all levels of film-making experience and culture, and often of a very high technical standard indeed. "Loettzninn" a bizarre animated duel between two tug-boats (far more engaging than I describe, trust me) is a truly awesome piece of animation from local lads, Chris Gough and Aaron Bradley that would look quite at home screened in front of anything that Pixar or Disney have to offer. Also of note was Andy Brand's "To His Knees He Fell", inspired by MR James' tale of violent revenge stunningly shot and featuring edgy performances by local actors Tim Cunningham and Greg Chisolm. My own personal fave on the night was Fleur Fenner's deliciously sublime "Ribble", a beautifully dark tale that answered that perennial question – "What does Rabbit Heaven look like?" Bang! was established by Donna Bowyer, Chris Cooke and Adam Robertson in January 2000. They wanted to create an event that allowed local filmmakers to showcase their work in a non-competitive, friendly environment. "Without filmmakers or an audience we would not exist, so we do it for them." Bang! is based at the Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, UK, and mixes local, national and international films to create an original and exciting night. The festival runs three times a year, each event featuring a main programme and a young filmmakers programme, each programme featuring 90 minutes of film mixing no cash raw talent alongside big money slickness, documentaries and drama, comedy and musical, experimentation and madness ... You make it: they show it at Bang! Coming in May 2005 there will be a special horror Bang! Festival called Mayhem! | 
