Confirmation this week from IAC Chairman, John Howden FACI, that the decision to postpone BIAFF 2020 scheduled for May 8-10.
"We have a provisional booking for the Festival to take place on October 16-18 at the same hotel in Stratford upon Avon, the Doubletree by Hilton. Details of this will be available in due course. I am very sorry to have to send this message, but rest assured that I will do my best to make sure that BIAFF happens in one form or another and that your films will form a very important part of that event. The competition results will be sent out as usual by the end of March. Keep safe and well."
And if that wasn't enough the International Festival UNICA 2020 has also been called off.
"Because of the COVID-19 pandemic it has been necessary to cancel UNICA this year. Please cancel your travel and hotel bookings. We will contact next week everyone who has paid. More news will follow in due course. This is a sad day for all of us."
Dave Watterson, UNICA President
Knowing the dedicated work and planning that must have already been put into the staging of these two prestigious events, their eventual cancellation must have gutted the organisers who had to pull the plug. We must salute all their hard work and support them in the years ahead.
I think that my "evening" at NM was the last but one held before the "lockdown". I was pleased that so many of you came along to support me - thank you. In my presentation I mentioned that seeing a presenter speaking to camera on location was a regular feature in TV programmes (holiday, documentary etc.) but seldom seen in amateur films, and I encouraged members to give it a try, perhaps having someone even reading from a guide book. Michael Portillo always has him Bradshaw's rail timetable in his hand in his railway programmes. Since then I have judged, as part of a panel of three, two regional competitions. The first was the 53rd annual Gloucester Inter-Club competition held at Perdiswell (same room as the CEMRIAC Seminar) on Saturday 14th March, just over two weeks ago. It must have been the last event to be held before the lockdown and we were already starting to distance ourselves. My fellow judges were Jill Lampert and Rob Day. How does this relate to my NM "evening"? Well, having said that we seldom saw a presenter to camera on location, there was a super film from Bristol where a female presenter was walking around their docklands. Her commentary was fairly continuous and brilliantly delivered, she came over well to camera. Lots of other things were cut away to when her voice became a voice-over.
The second competition was the SERIAC Festival with 40 odd entries. These were prejudged down to 27 for we final judges, Geof Caudwell, Alicia Gazely and myself. We had booked the Derby Clubroom for the day and evening to meet for this task, but Covid19 beat us to it and we had to cancel this and have done it online. What is it they say about waiting ages for a bus and then two come along together? In our selection of 27 films there were a number which all used this technique. One was by a 7 year old girl (yes 7) who gave a tour of the area close to Tower Bridge. She led the way, sometimes speaking to camera and sometimes a voice-over. The film lasted 11 minutes and she was featured for pretty much the whole time. WOW! wish I could do that. Another film was of a "Greenwich Walk", just a stone's throw away, where the presenter, a man, did a similar thing but also read out items from his guide book from time to time. Effective. I will try to show this film to you at the club when we resume meetings.