Strong Island

The Last Resort – Student Film Wins Award

Friday, July 23rd, 2010. Published in Art, Craft & Design, Cultural & Exhibitions, Film & Cinematography by

A documentary film about the decline of Portsmouth as a traditional seaside resort has won first prize for three student film-makers who graduate this week.

The University of Portsmouth students won the award for ‘best documentary’ at the Inspire Film Festival for their graduate film ‘The Last Resort’ which received critical acclaim from the judging panel including legendary film critic, Barry Norman. The film explores the decline of the Southsea as a traditional seaside resort told from the perspective of an elderly sea-swimmers group, a sea-front cafe manager and the owner of a model village.
The 16 minute film made by Russell Oastler, David Kinnaird and Lucas Way has since been picked up by the Sunday Times Short Film Community, an online showcase for the work of new film-makers which goes live in August.

The film explores the declining fortunes of The Big Wheel Cafe at Clarence Pier and Southsea’s model village, run by Mike Armet, who owns the attraction on Southsea Esplanade.
The film also introduces a group of Southsea die-hard swimmers who take a dip in the Solent’s chilly water 365 days a year. Some have been swimming there for over 30 years and even swim on Christmas Day. Sadly one of their group, 86 year old Dorothy Browning, passed away during the making of the documentary and the film has been dedicated to her memory.
Russell, who has just returned from work-experience on a professional short film, said it was never his plan to be a documentary film-maker but enjoys the unplanned nature of the medium.
“I like the idea that you don’t really know what might happen in a documentary – it could be something totally unexpected,” he said.

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2 Comments to The Last Resort – Student Film Wins Award

  1. well done to all involved – gives the interviewees room to breath and gets across the subject and sense of place and community really well. Good documentary film making – good luck with it.

    saftandboneless on July 30th, 2010

  2. This documentary is fantastic, real insight into the lives of portsmouthians! A black comedy with some heart breaking moments. Congratulations, we are visiting the model villsge today.

    clare key, Justin Bateman, Victoria Blackburn on August 14th, 2010

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Features

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

Friday, January 27th, 2012. Published in Art, Craft & Design, Features, Photography by

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

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It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Friday, October 28th, 2011. Published in Community, Features, Local Events by

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage

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