‘Extreme filmmaking’ in action

Could you make a film in a week? If this sounds like a tough challenge, well, it is. But an annual competition held in Casalborgone, Turin, Italy invites budding filmmakers to do just that, and this year, a group of friends from Malta decided to take on the challenge.

Striving to put together a film about "the power play between two characters," the six-man team began work on 'Garden of Hidden' - a 25-minute short film centering around the story of a young boy living in an isolated castle - an evocative location afforded to the team by the competition.

With Martin Bonnici and Klaus Pas as co-directors, a script by Peter Farrugia (who also took care of props), Chris Galea and Pas, Luc Walpoth acting as director of photography and sound design by Aleksandar Bundalo, the still-in-production film is definitely an example of 'DIY filmmaking' at its most raw which, given the oft-advertised plight of local filmmakers, is a testament of the trudging hard work all filmmakers - though particularly local ones, due to lack of funding and appropriate structures - have to undertake.

And it's a trudge which, sadly, doesn't always appear to pay off, at least in the short-term, and unfortunately the travails of the Garden of Hidden team are something of a testament to that.

As the seven-day 'MonfilmFest - Giochi di Cinema' festival went underway, the Maltese-Swiss team was disqualified due to a technicality. Though judging by Bonnici's reaction, the team is going ahead with the project with a stiff upper lip.

"We went up there to make a short together and that's what we did. In a way getting disqualified was no surprise. When we got there we found out that the editing location they said we need to edit in was a barn in the woods, next to the festival director's house, this also happened to be a 15 minute drive from our base," Bonnici explained.

According to Bonnici - and perhaps unsurprisingly - there was also a considerable amount of physical strain involved in what is essentially something of an extreme artistic challenge, though he maintains that the experience was worth it - if only to identify potential problem areas for any future productions. 

"Physically it was hell for us - by the end of it, most of us were sick. Obviously we tried to use every minute of our time so if we could do without food and drink, we were willing to make that sacrifice...

"Ultimately, I think what pushed us back was that the script wasn't ready the day before we shot, so there was little time to plan details and discuss the execution," Bonnici said.

Listing the joy of collaborating with several individuals and entities - the film was a co-production between Bonnici's own Shadeena, Pasmania Entertainment, Turbulence Films, Fotogramma 25 and Castello di San Sebastian Po (where the short was shot) - as a positive factor to emerge from the experience, Bonnici also said that the added pressure of having to produce a film from scratch in a week put the team's creative priorities in order.

"Usually, you're worrying about funding and other ancillary things before you start shooting - this time we just had to get down to shooting no matter what," Bonnici said.

From a scriptwriting point of view, Peter Farrugia found the journey from page to screen fascinating. Describing the kernel of the story as a "father-son relationship", Farrugia said that he's "always been interested in the hidden lives of isolated characters, and this was the perfect opportunity to explore these themes".

"There was something really satisfying about seeing my original treatment, written more as a short story than a proper script, slowly transformed by close collaboration and careful editing, and ultimately realised," Farrugia added.