The predecessor to all film
competitions with a time limit, the 48 Hour Film Project (HFP) made its yearly
visit to Singapore last December 2015, and Team
Zissou made a record-breaking debut, sweeping away most of the awards such
as Best Film, Best Directing, Best Use of
Prop and the Audience Award (For Group A).
A stipulated genre, line, prop and character had to
be utilized in the submission of a maximum of 7 minutes within 48 hours, certainly stretching the participating teams’ creativity and
stamina to the limit. Suffice to say, Team Zissou, led by director and writer Leo Poloneiki, who is a commercials director at FreeFlow Productions, applied his
professional touch to the game, making their submission, “The Anniversary” come
off as one real smooth thriller masterpiece with loads of ingenuity peppered
into it.
Set in a dilapidated shopping centre, a nervous middle-aged Caucasian
lady seeks to sell a property, a building she lauds as a historical landmark. Elsewhere,
a spirit detective tests the air for beings of the netherworld; the sale of
the building dependent on his findings. A film with adaptation of all elements
of your usual thriller/horror feast, Leo admits the similarities The Anniversary share with The Shining (By Stanley Kubrick) as purposeful
and calculated, such as the adopting of the “one-point perspective”.
And Mr Kubrick would be rightfully pleased! The Anniversary even leaves its viewer hanging with the non-conclusion
at the end, like any good short film would. To watch The Anniversary, click
here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1HWW1BHygo
Photo credit: 48HFP
By Gwen X
By Gwen X