I love writing for the 48 Hour Film Project. But this year, 2018, I had the great pleasure and challenge of judging two 48 Hour Film Project competitions simultaneously. The Jacksonville, Florida and Savannah, Georgia contests occurred on the same weekend for the first time: June 1-3. Fortunately, I had two weeks to view and recommend awards for the 44 films.
Films are limited to 7 minutes in running time and must include four elements dictated by headquarters in Washington, D.C. A genre is chosen from a hat by team leaders and their film should reflect that genre. Then a character name and occupation or role is assigned to all teams, along with a line of dialogue and a prop. Teams meet for the launch party on Friday nights at 7pm and they have until Sunday night, 7pm to write, shoot, edit and submit their films. There are 130 48HFP city competitions worldwide in 2018.
Congratulations to the 17 teams that completed films on time for the Savannah competition and to the 27 teams that turned in films by the deadline for the Jacksonville competition. Winners will be announced for both competitions soon. The best film from each city will go on to vie for Best 48HFP Film of 2018 at Filmapalooza at the Short Film Corner, Cannes 2019.