Here is news from London’s Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, which is now open for submissions and will be held August 8-14 in London. The 7th edition of the Lonely Wolf International Film Festival exhibits sophistication, growth and maturity on both a logistical and thematic front.
The festival is proud to welcome a record-high number of submissions for any one single trimmestral virtual event so far, with 737 total audiovisual projects in competition. The submissions have been critically deconstructed and reviewed in just four months by a global jury team, digitally led by Adrian Perez, former manager of regional marketing communications and asset management for the Disney Channels EMEA/UK and The Walt Disney Company.
Best Screenplays (Written/Unproduced)
SERIAL (USA) · Robert Benjamin
THE COMBINE S1.E1 ‘Metamorphosis’ (USA) · Cole Dilts
BLACK OCEAN (USA) · Francesca Florentyna O’Hop
MAKE A WISH (UK) · Robyn Pete
AMY AND ANGEL (USA) · Julia Verdin, Deedee Benkovich
RESET BUTTON (USA) · Paul Root
LONELY WOLF STATS
A pool of submissions that basks diversity, with Lonely Wolf’s jury extending their expertise and a plethora of welcomed formats beyond motion pictures and screenplays, to podcasts, filmed theatre/live-recorded media, fashion films and cult cinema.
The ratio of male: female: non-binary content creators this season amounts to 65: 30: 5. This marks a record-high of 219 women filmmakers for any one single Lonely Wolf season. Progress.
The ratio of domestic: international content creators ranges from 72 domestic submissions (10%) from the United Kingdom, 369 submissions (50%) from the United States and 289 submissions (40%) from all Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific and China. A decline of submissions from the Russian Federation and Ukraine has hit the festival, but some student filmmakers from the Alexander Mitta Film School were resilient enough to contact the festival team. The standout Russian student film DEJA VU (dir: Artur Matveev) and breathtaking Ukrainian documentary THE TRUCK (dir: Viacheslav Merzlikin) both made the official selection. A triumph for both artistic circles during the current war crisis.
104 total audiovisual projects (15%) have been officially selected to be streamed for an exclusive 10-day window (29 April to 7 May).
This season’s festival trailer has a considerable paid media budget behind it to send the film programme into stratosphere and reach as big an audience as possible. Lonely Wolf’s record as of yet is a reach of 417,960 people for the Spring 2021 virtual film programme. This converted to around 3,883 official attendees + 10,691 total film streams for the 10-day window. This season promises just as big an audience, if not a new record. An official email account from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment last year opted for a free pass via FilmFreeway; important industry attendees are to be expected, and interesting conversations do spark from the festival’s virtual event for some of the top contenders of the season.
Lonely Wolf’s state-of-the-art, multi-DRM encrypted streamer pops-up again (Google Widevine DRM encryption, Apple Fairway DRM + members-only password protection).
Link to access the digital cinema + official selection is here.
Free passes to unlock/watch the films can be obtained directly via the Lonely Wolf website are here.
Another 248 total audiovisual projects (34%) made at least one of the official top 20 ranking spots in at least one award category (out of the 83 total categories that are hosted). Making one of the top 20 positions means that the project excelled in one of the production’s specific technical and/or artistic merits, leveraging it to the top 3% of all 737 projects from across the globe this season. An achievement to scream from the rooftops.
Making the top 10 positions is an extra achievement, for apart from an official award laurel to plaster over your work, the project qualifies to have the award nomination (or win) listed on IMDb here.
Link to this season’s competition results here.
ABOUT THE FILM PROGRAMME
Lonely Wolf’s latest curated film programme — sophistically-architected, quietly explosive — hangs viewers instantly over a psychosocial and existential precipice of identity, with invigorating titles whose infectiously empathic protagonists long for connection and freedom. Powerful thematic tensions embellished in exemplary narrative silence, stylistic hysteria and irresistibly fresh auteur archeology drive film as an artform to new heights. But that’s not all — this season’s cinematic depth’s also rivaled with vivid brush strokes of epic science fiction, fantasy and animation that leverage indie film’s capabilities as an industry to new heights
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Best Screenplays (Written/Unproduced)
SERIAL (USA) · Robert Benjamin
THE COMBINE S1.E1 ‘Metamorphosis’ (USA) · Cole Dilts
BLACK OCEAN (USA) · Francesca Florentyna O’Hop
MAKE A WISH (UK) · Robyn Pete
AMY AND ANGEL (USA) · Julia Verdin, Deedee Benkovich
RESET BUTTON (USA) · Paul Root