{"id":1445,"date":"2017-07-06T18:01:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T17:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.satellite.mmu.ac.uk\/northernquota-old\/2017\/07\/06\/call-water-tank-6-wins-telling-tales-film-audio-festival\/"},"modified":"2017-07-06T18:01:09","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T17:01:09","slug":"call-water-tank-6-wins-telling-tales-film-audio-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/satellite.mmu.ac.uk\/northernquota-old\/call-water-tank-6-wins-telling-tales-film-audio-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"“A Call From Water Tank 6” wins Telling Tales Film & Audio Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filmmakers and students from the UK and across the globe descended on Manchester last weekend for Manchester Metropolitan University’s first annual international film and audio festival: Telling Tales.<\/p>\n

In its inaugural year, the international festival provided avid Mancunian film fanatics with a delightful range of documentary to enjoy.<\/p>\n

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Unlike traditional film festivals, Telling Tales<\/em><\/strong> offered a range of visual and <\/em>audio documentaries. From the visually beautiful to the emotionally gripping, the documentaries on offer at Telling Tales managed to encapsulate the imagination of the audience in a way which larger film festivals cannot.<\/p>\n

Through Q&A’s after the documentaries, the audience was afforded a more intimate connection with both the documentary and<\/em> the people behind the documentaries. Finding out the motives; how the documentaries were made; and what the maker’s message was, added another dimension to the festival.<\/p>\n

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Documentaries make us question our personal realities, often leaving audiences wanting to know more. Directly asking the maker of a film what they were trying to convey, or what they experienced while making it, opens a window into the world which they were only able to show us a glimmer of. <\/p>\n

Speaking about what it meant to win at the festival, Emmi van den Boom<\/strong>, part of the team which made A Call From Water Tank 6<\/em>, the winner of the Grand Prize, told The NQ: “It was quite bizarre to win with the first documentary that you make.<\/p>\n

“This is the second competition we entered it in, and we won. We’re very happy for that!<\/p>\n

The fact that Emmi and her team got to tell the world the story of their subject seemed to be a personal highlight for the Dutch filmmaker: “We’re just very grateful we got to tell Grace’s [the refugee mother at the centre of the documentary] story as there’s no coverage of this in the media at all.”<\/p>\n

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Documentaries often shine light on issues which are not present in the mainstream discussion. Another major achievement of Telling Tales<\/em> was how it managed to cover a diverse range of subject matters that are often silent in media discourse, such as bullying, Islamaphobia or medicinal cannabis.<\/p>\n

It’s also easy to forget that those who make documentaries often form deep, personal connections with their subjects, something the winner of the Audio Documentary (The Silent Wound<\/em>) category mentioned: “This prize is important to me, as it was a painful experience for me.<\/p>\n

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“I so saw so much sadness; I couldn’t sleep for 4 months while I was going through editing. To be rewarded is a nice culmination for the whole process.”<\/p>\n

Natalia Guerrero<\/strong>, who made The Silent Wound, <\/em>explained why she made the audio-doc, which looked at the fall-out of the Columbian civil war:<\/p>\n

“I was born surrounded by violence.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to explore the often overlooked consequences of war for soldiers – the sexual consequences for soldiers. I wanted to focus on the male as the topic. The loss of soldier’s penis, specifically.”<\/p>\n

The festival could not have happened without the dedicated effort of MMU Lecturer, Lisa Gold<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

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Speaking about how she felt the inaugural festival went, Lisa said: “I’m so proud of how the whole event went. It’s so great to see all these documentaries get their time on the big screen. <\/p>\n

“We had some truly amazing pieces from filmmakers from across the world; we had entries from the UK, Holland and America.<\/p>\n

“There were so many wonderful documentaries on display for people, I don’t know how our judge chose a winner!”<\/p>\n

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Lisa explained why she included audio documentaries, which are seldom seen at film festivals: “Well, I teach audio documentaries at MMU, so I may have been slightly biased!<\/p>\n

“Audio documentaries can sometimes convey a message in a way which visual ones cannot, they tell a story which invokes the imagination!”<\/p>\n

This year’s Telling Tales was only the first instalment of the annual documentary festival. It is sure to grow in the years to come.<\/p>\n

For more information on Telling-Tales, the winners, and more visit their http:\/\/www.telling-tales-festival.com\/<\/a>official website. <\/p>\n

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Winners:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n