BBDO shops scored top honors at this past weekend’s Kinsale Shark Awards and Festival. AMV BBDO London scored the Grand Prix for Bodyform/Libresse’s “Blood Normal,” which also picked up a Creative Bravery Award.
“Blood Normal” shows women dealing with their periods in real-life scenarios, breaking taboos about dealing with menstrual cycles. Daniel Wolfe via Somesuch directed the piece, part of a campaign in which the feminine care brands also commissioned aspiring filmmakers to make short films that openly reference periods.
Besides AMV BBDO’s strong showing, Kinsale also saw BBDO New York earn Agency of the Year distinction. And the Network of the Year mantle was bestowed upon BBDO.
Meanwhile, another Creative Bravery Award went to Mother for KFC’s “FCK.” And Rothko scored the Irish Agency of the Year designation.
Carol Freeman and Christian Shilling won, respectively, Best Irish New Director and Best New International Director, honors which were voted on by the festival audience. Freeman was recognized for The Bird and The Whale, an oil paint on glass animated film in which a baby whale separated from his family discovers a caged bird, the sole survivor of a shipwreck. Together they struggle to survive at sea. Schilling scored with three films: Kill the Noise, Pomegranate, and The Man with a Coin. The latter–an offbeat comedic piece in which a man repeatedly decides his fate with the flip of a coin–earlier this year earned Schilling a slot in SHOOT’s 2018 New Directors Showcase.
Gold film winners included Riff Raff Films for Nike’s “Nothing Beats A Londoner” out of Wieden+Kennedy London, and VCCP for Cadbury’s “Beach Huts” and “Coast.” James Rouse via Outsider directed the Cadbury fare while Riff Raff’s Megaforce helmed “Nothing Beats A Londoner” which back in February earned SHOOT’s Top Spot of the Week distinction.
Film craft golds went to Rothko, Motherland, Nexus, Sonny London, Framestore, MPC, Riff Raf, Blur Films and BBDO NY.
Best short film went to Wren Boys, directed by Harry Lighton, for Try Hard Films.
Best music video was won by CANADA for Rosalia’s “Malamente.”
In design, The Line Animation and Energy BBDO won for “Gucci Hallucinations” and “Prescribed to Death,” respectively.
Seven golds were awarded for PR and Interactive including Rothko’s “JFK Unsilenced,” BETC’s “Save our Species” for Lacoste, and AMV BBDO’s “Trash Aisles” for LadBible/Plastic Oceans Foundation.
Music and sound golds went to Goldstein for Dementia UK’s “Together Again” and to Factory for John Lewis & Partnership’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
No golds were awarded in digital, but two silvers went to makemepulse for Canal+ “The Real Voice of Louis XIV” and BBDO New York for Downtown Records “Live Looper.”
Kinsale winners this year spanned the U.K., Ireland, the U.S., Canada, Thailand, Germany, France, Belgium and Sweden.
For a full list of winners at the 56th Kinsale Shark Awards & Festival, click here.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More