2017 Festival Report

Another sparkling evening in our favourite venue, The Festival Theatre. The program was an outstanding success with our audience, combining as it did, new films with others from our archives.

Thanks to the generosity of our audience, a reduced hire fee from the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, (the present custodians of the theatre), the good will of the film makers and much hard work from our team of volunteers we managed to raise three hundred pounds for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Many thanks to all those concerned.

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2016 Festival Report

Once again we can report an exciting, sell-out event. The Festival Theatre played host to a hugely enthusiastic audience and our volunteer committee and helpers did a magnificent job preparing the theatre, running the event, organising and attending the audience.

The evening was split into two half’s with a gap for refreshments in the middle to sustain audience and judges in their task of choosing a winning film.

At the end of the evening while the judges retired to consider their verdict we conducted the audience vote. This creates great fun and robust debate and within a fifteen minutes we had our audience award winner, The Edge, a wonderful Russian animation by Alexandra Averyanova.

The judges then gave their verdict and to our surprise also chose The Edge, (first time the judges and audience have ever agreed). Then each judge commended one film each. For Tom Woodcock it was Besieged Bread by Soudade Kaadan, Helen Judge chose Monster by Rina B Tsou and Jack Toye went for In The Shadow Of The Mountain by Neith Sentis.

Finally it was the turn of the viewing panel. We have watched every single film submitted to us this year, in fact we watched many of them twice, and, being an opinionated bunch, we thought that it was about time that we gave our own award. So we did and chose Besieged Bread.

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Festival Report

A delightful ending to 9 months of hard, unpaid, voluntary work from many people, the 14th Strawberry Shorts Film Festival was a fantastic success.

In the charming surroundings of the Festival Theatre, the audience were treated to a carefully crafted program of 15 international short films. Tickets for the event were sold out days in advance and the audience started to arrive an hour before the start, mingling and chatting in the foyer and making use of the refreshments served by our fantastic cafe crew.

After being welcomed to the festival, the judges introduced and voting sheets explained, the audience were then treated to two one hour programmes, with a tea break in the middle to help the selection process.

At the end of the evening the judges retired to consider their verdicts and the audience voted for their winning film. Continue reading →

Festival Report

Well once again we had a fantastic festival, but, then again, you would expect us to say that wouldn’t you. But really, we did! The event itself was a joy made really special by being held in the wonderful setting of the Festival Theatre, it celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, (thanks Cambridge Buddhist Centre). The superb programme we were able to present only made possible by the quality of the hundreds of entries we received this year.

Then there was the dedicated, professional and happy band of our volunteer crew who produced a flawlessly run evening, our three judges who gave great advice, fine entertainment and at the end of the evening held the audience with their views on the programme in general and their reasoning behind their awards in particular. We were honoured with presence of a true celebrity,Mr Leland Carlson the understated star of one of our entries, Born To Be Mild, (Director Andy Oxley, 2014). But of course none of this would amount to a hill of beans without the heart warming loyalty and huge enthusiasm of our audience

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Yet another successful Cambridge Strawberry Shorts Film Festival and some say the best yet! Set in the historic surrounds of the Cambridge Festival Theatre, in front of a packed house we screened the final selection of the near 400 films submitted to us this year. (see below for the programme). Starting with our 3 judges, Tom Woodcock, Tina Kendall and Neil McCartney, talking to the audience about some of their criteria for a short film. We then launched into our programme, and the production was superb, thanks to the fantastic, projector and screen loaned to us by The Cambridge Film Trust.

At the end of the evening while the judges discussed their choices we engaged the audience in voting for the the Audience award. Working through the programme and voting on a show of hands with some entertaining comments and conversations on the films seen we soon came to a conclusion,the award going to the Iranian film, The Theft. A short, neat and complete film with an enigmatic ending which was still being debated days later. All this was held together with superb technical skill and high production values. Continue reading →

The Cambridge Strawberry Shorts Film Festival lived up to every expectation.

A fantastic evening spent viewing superb short films in the best of venues. The audience were enthusiastic, the jury, entertaining and engaging, and the staff/crew/helpers, all volunteers, were as good as you get, working the door, selling programmes, stewarding and running the café. Thanks to each and every one.

All this made possible with the kind co-operation of the Cambridge Buddhist Centre in who’s charge the Festival Theatre now resides.

Of course non of this would have happened if were not for the film makers who submitted over 250 films. And to those we need to say the biggest thank you. We only managed to show 18 of those films and we are not saying that we showed the best 18. Of course they were good but the best? Such a subjective issue and one that we answer this way.

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Cambridge Cinema Shorts in partnership with Strawberry Fair were delighted to run The Cambridge Strawberry Shorts Film Festival 2011 on the evening of Friday 3 June.

The festival was held in the Cinema Marquee on Midsummer Common and had the honour of acting as the opening event for Strawberry Fair.

Check out the full running order, packed with the very best and latest short films from around the world.

The doors opened at 17:30 and by 18:30 when the screening started, the Cinema Marquee was packed.

The Cambridge Strawberry Shorts Film Festival is a fully competitive film festival with Best Local Film and Best Overall Film award categories. In each category we have an Audience Vote and Jury Vote, the winners receiving a converted La Fraise d’Or.

And this years La Fraise d’Or winners are . . .

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