We're proud as punch that one of the films produced under The Joy Of 8mm initiative has just scooped two top awards at the 10th Brief Encounters Short Film Festival.

‘Dog Years’ from Sam Hearn and Richard Penfold of Omni Productions in Bristol won the prestigious UK Film Council Audience Award, which celebrates the film voted best of the festival by the audience. It also picked up the ITV West Award for Best Film from the South West region.

‘Dog Years’ introduces us to Ben, a 30 something mongrel who’s having a few ups and downs with his owner. It was unique amongst all the entries to Brief Encounters for being shot sequentially and unedited on a single, three and a half minute cartridge of Super 8mm film.

This is the second notable success for a Joy of 8mm film. ‘They Came From Far Away’ from Clevedon-based Chris Walker and Adam Pike has also recently been nominated for the Heinz Soup Cup Shorts Awards.

This is a fantastic way to cap our first year and is a ringing endorsement of our belief that talent just needs the right opportunity and encouragement to succeed. In its first year of operation, The Joy Of 8mm has enabled the production of 120 films and provided opportunities to over 500 filmmakers.

We're planning many more events for 2005 and are also busy working on plans to stream many of the films produced on the website.

In the meantime, please feel free to register your interest on the Entry page and will let you know details of the next challenge as soon as it is launched.