PRESS RELEASE Congratulations to our SWWJ filmmakers home now from Hollywood Film Festival.
How lovely to hear of the success of a group of our Society of Women Writers' filmmakers living in St Albans. who, just a few years ago, created their J.A.B.S.
Productions' team. Jane Fookes, Anne Stafford Murray, Benita
Cullingford and her daughter Sharon Hoyland used the years of the covid pandemic to create their J.AB.S. making short films which resulted in a fabulous visit to Hollywood and their film festival. And - wait for it - they won!
Their five-minute film Snatched won Best Female Production (Short film) at the Skiptown
Playhouse International Film Festival, Hollywood, USA, in November 2023. In
addition, their film was selected for inclusion in the London Lift
Off International Film Festival in December 2023, and was previously a
joint winner for Best Short Film for Children at the Bridge of Peace
International Film Festival in Paris, April 2023. Anne, their director, said:
‘I can’t believe we’ve come this far in less than two years.
We’ve known each other as local writers for a long time, but collaborating
together has brought about our current successes. Initially, we were going to
film a short play of Benita’s in her garden, on a smart phone. My daughter
Larissa had just graduated from film school in London, and I suggested that she
could shoot it on a more professional film camera/camcorder. So that’s what we did.
'Subsequently
adopting a cinematic approach, we have made five shorts, with Benita and Jane
as screenwriters on different films, and myself as director and editor. Benita
is also our producer, Larissa our director of photography and Sharon our sound
recordist and everything else. Some of
us act in them as well.’
J.A.B.S
Productions second film The Way We Were Valentine won Best Mental Health short at the Cotswold International Film Festival in
September 2022 and was selected for inclusion in the Berlin Lift Off
International Film Festival in March 2023. Their next
project is a short children’s film Zsa Zsa and Boo due for release very
soon.
To view the
films on their YouTube channel visit:
https://youtube.com/@annemurray6630?si=FiFMzMo5PLvL2ZK3
Pictures Some of the JABS team on the red carpet at Skiptown
Playhouse International Film Festival, Hollywood, USA, November 2023.