Kazbah Theatre has been working with a series of bunraku-style puppets recently and decided to use three of these puppets to make a short film for the Bristol 48 Hour Puppet Film Challenge, a competition that attracts international interest.
On Friday 15 September at 7 pm teams were given three prompts which they had to include in a film which could last no more than 3.5 minutes, we created our film over the next 48 hours with some intensive writing, designing, lighting, directing, filming and editing. A team of 6 puppeteers worked on the project. Andy Evans acted as the writer/producer and also puppeteered during filming. Samuel Pearson last seen in Cap'n Fishcake and His Fabulous Fish Fingers, led on the main character of Pierre the lovelorn Pierrot clown. Newcomers Katherine Leonard, Emily Furness, Tim Knight and Mary Knight made up the rest of the team. Tim led on photography and Katherine edited the film. Mary assisted in lighting as well. It was a pure team effort but Kazbah is delighted to say that they rose to the challenge, included the three prompts necessary and created a film they are rightly proud of.
The prompts given were:
Action - open
Object - glass
Theme - power
All three had to be included to meet the requirements of the Festival. Films also had to use original or copyright/royalty free music as well. They chose a song from epidemicsounds.com by Luella Gren entitled "Why Is She Crying?" that they felt fitted the tone and the mood of the film perfectly. The film became The Power of Love by Andy Evans and the Kazbah Puppet Studio.
At the time of writing the competition has yet to be judged, but regardless of the outcome Kazbah is exceptionally proud of what it has achieved. None of the puppeteers has any puppetry experience prior to February 2023 when Kazbah Theatre was formed during the R&D week funded by Grimsby Creates.
All 70 films entered into the contest will be screened on Saturday 23 September and the results of the competition will be announced on the evening of Sunday 24 September. The Power of Love will be screened during the 4pm block of films over YouTube and can be viewed by following this link.
Our film will be available for viewing on YouTube after the competition announces the results and can be found at the link below:
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