2/5/2013
Channel 4 to host opening 3 events of 2013 British Urban Film Festival
Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, the director of the British Urban Film Festival has today announced the first batch of key dates, venues and events scheduled for this year’s 8th annual event which will once again showcase 16 films together with a line-up of programming on TV and online. The festival returns to its’ September slot due to last year’s Paralympic Games (coincidentally broadcast ...
Those of you joining us for the first time we thank you. We’d also like to welcome in a new audience to the 34th edition of the BUFF Blog. This month’s contribution is guest-written by Anthony Abuah, a previous winner of a Commonwealth Film award and the latest in a succession of British based playwrights who’ve made the transition from stage to screen with his debut feature 'Woolwich Boys' – the closing film of last year’s British Urban Film Festival. Regar...
Happy Easter in advance. This month’s edition of the BUFF Blog is guest-written by actor Jay Brown who can be seen over the next 8 weeks on E4’s new drama ‘Youngers’. The series premiered on Wednesday March 20 with viewing figures of 450,000 viewers. It was also the 5th most tweeted about programme on TV that day beating ITV’s ‘Coronation Street’ with over 35,000 live tweets during transmission. Follow @JayBrownActor and @buffenterprises on...
Happy February one and all. This month’s edition of the BUFF Blog is guest-written by award-winning writer/director Stephen Lloyd Jackson whose film ‘David is Dying’ premiered on the opening night of the 2011 British Urban Film Festival. The film continues to win awards in the UK and across the globe, most recently on February 17 when Lonyo Engele triumphed in the best male performance in film category at the 2013 Screen Nation film and television awards. Follow...
Happy new year (just about!) This month’s edition of the BUFF Blog is guest-written by actor/writer/director Femi Oyeniran whose first film as a director (‘Fresh Off Da Boat’) was screened at the 2009 British Urban Film Festival. Follow @femioyeniran and @buffenterprises on Twitter…
The Difference between making a Short and making a Feature Film
I’ve had the question put to me a few times- what is the difference between making a feature film an...
With the exception of Kate Herron, Ugo Onwutalu & Nadia Denton, 6 board members have guest-written the BUFF Blog in the 3 or so years since its’ inception in April 2009 which, at the time, lauded the film ‘Adulthood’ as a watershed for urban independent cinema. A lot has happened since then...
@buffenterprises sent out its very first tweet in April 2009, 3 ½ years on @SpikeLee no less is retweeting BUFF NEWS ALERTS. Also back in 2009, @NoelClarke was ...
With the exception of an alluring red carpet, its' safe to say that BUFF has pretty much rolled out everything else in its power to deliver this year's annual showcase of British urban filmmaking of which, at the time of writing has been 1 week removed.
A showcase is of course nothing without the undoubted stars of the show - the filmmakers. It has been a blast this year with 3 UK premieres ("Sparkle", "12" and "Melvin"), 2 venues packed out to the r...
BUFF Presents... a series of films showcased by the British Urban Film Festival will be screened as part of a special series on Community Channel this October. This is the second season of BUFF programming on the channel this year.
In April, viewers saw the directorial debut of Aml Ameen with the short film “Drink, Drugs & KFC” and his latest film “12” will premiere as part of the series. Other films to be shown include a film produced by the African Caribbe...
Actor
Wil Johnson will host the opening night of the 7th British Urban
Film Festival in October, the producers of BUFF 2012 have announced.
Johnson,
whose previous film and TV credits include “Waking the Dead”, “Waterloo Road”
and “Babymother”, will be making his debut as festival presenter having
previously featured in starring roles at BUFF in the films ‘Disoriented
Generation’ and ‘Colour Blind’.
SERTUC
Film Club, which has agreed...
The much maligned profile of Black British actresses has been well documented on this blog over the past 18 months and most recently in the London Evening Standard with the forthcoming feel-good flick ‘Fast Girls’ and the supposed significance of Leonora Crichlow playing the lead role in a British film. On such matters is primarily where Twitter comes into its own as a live news editor run by the public. It doesn’t take long before feedback is immediate and corrected (many thanks to @ECF...
Traditionally
in the UK, the most-watched programmes on television are always
scheduled on a Saturday night. The last few years have seen a more
aggressive approach to win hearts and minds with the UK’s 2 biggest
broadcasters (BBC & ITV) going head-to-head and scheduling their
‘MUST-SEE’ programmes against each other. In the last 6 months alone,
Strictly Come Dancing was beating The X Factor when previously the ITV
juggernaut was winning hand over fist.
On ...
The
UK Hip-Hop group N-Dubz will headline the British Urban Film Festival’s
broadcast coverage on Community Channel in April. The four-time MOBO winners,
who got together as teenagers, are the subject of a documentary, which followed
the band when they first started out in their career over a decade ago.
‘Before
they were Dubz’, directed by film journalist Jessie Grace Mellor, is the
centrepiece of the “BUFF Presents…”strand premiering on Community Channel on
Saturd...
At the time of publication, it was recently announced that ifeatures2, Britain’s low-budget, feature film-making initiative, has just reopened for submissions. Creative England, the BFI Film Fund and BBC Films are joining forces to support the development and production of three full-length features, all to be set within the English regions. Each film will be produced on a budget of £350,000 and the BBC is also pre-buying UK Free TV rights to the completed films. It’s open to writer, direct...
In a little over 4 months from now, this year’s British Urban Film Festival line-up will be decided. Another year consuming, digesting and deliberating on hours of output, private screenings and submissions will come to a head and the UK’s buffest films (otherwise known as the sweet 16) will be offered to the public for due consideration at BUFF 2012, the 7th such occasion, with each festival seemingly surpassing itself in profile and prestige year on year. And so it goes without saying th...
The first month of Olympic year in London has not failed to disappoint in terms of celebrating the best of British. At the time of publication of this blog came news that the network television premiere of ‘Sus’ – co-produced by and starring Clint Dyer attracted 600,000 viewers on BBC 1, dominating all TV viewing at the time of broadcast (which at 11.15pm is quite impressive). Previous BUFF blogs and the festival in general have championed the likes of films like ‘Sus’ and will conti...
In keeping with the tradition of listening to a rather powerful woman just before you’re about to embark on what’s really important – or maybe you’ve already squashed Christmas lunch by the time your attention is perhaps swayed by a certain Elizabeth Windsor – its’ time we took note of another Christmas message – the one being brought to you by another powerful woman (Sheila Nortley) who is fast becoming a regular fixture on the urban independent film circuit. And before we hear ...
From Top Boy to Wuthering Heights, the much vaunted and much celebrated prominence of cultural diversity in British film and TV shows no signs of abating and continues to rouse and excite cinema buffs both here and abroad. In a month which has already seen Sket, Demons Never Die & Death in Paradise entertain the masses, there is much to take in – including yet more awards for David is Dying; introducing the newest member of the BUFF board, journalist and filmmaker Jessie Grace Mellor; an...
“Charles Thompson is a Godsend. I’m fortunate to have started out in media under the tutelage of Charles almost a decade ago now. I was there when Screen Nation was in its infancy and I’m privileged to still be a part of it all albeit as a supporter of this year’s event where another of my mentors (Menelik Shabazz) will be rightly honoured also. I have a lot of time for Charles who in turn has shown a lot of time for me and for so many people in the film industry who would’ve taken g...
Mr Geoff Small, Mr Stephen Lloyd Jackson, Mr Yves Brodsky, Ms Sonja Phillips, Ms Jane Sanchez-Gull, Mr Aml Ameen, Mr Cassius Matthias, Mr Lyndon Ives, Mr Harold Chapman, Ms Ida Akesson, Ms Beth Parkes, Mr Richard Bond, Mr Ben Miller, and Mr Paris Leonti.
Having saluted our 16 shortlisted filmmakers BUFF would like to thank all of those other talented filmmakers who’ve submitted their entries for festival consideration – it has been a privilege to watch them all. We would also like t...
Who would be a media mogul ey? The last few weeks and months has seen the likes of Simon Cowell and Rupert Murdoch become the story for the wrong reasons. For months, the press were told who was in and who was out in the game of musical chairs regarding this year’s X Factor judges. Eventually we said goodbye to Danni Minogue and Cheryl Cole and hello to Kelly Rowland and Tulisa Contostavlos (Peter Dickson, the voice of X-Factor will certainly have his hands full announcing her name in full e...
Online, on-air and in person, this is BUFF. And so said the voice of BUFF which greeted the masses of online followers with the May 31 announcement of this year’s opening feature. And though the dulcet tones of Ewan Allinson and DJ Elayne Smith will continue to form a cornerstone of the BUFF movement, things are going to be a little bit different round here. From September, the 2011 British Urban Film Festival will be coming at ya with a whole new look which means, finally, that the buffest fi...
From a spunky heroine to ‘the’ flashback, from ‘Babymother’ to ‘Sus’, Anjela Lauren Smith has graced British cinema for the best part of 2 decades and continues to adorn the big screen and the small screen. Behind the scenes, her versatility and passion for the industry shows no sign of abating either. The latest string to her bow was her recent appointment to the board of members at Buff Enterprises. We’re delighted that Anjela has accepted this position at a time where British ...
