Bank, Camera, Action!

Dear Student Filmmaker,

The Bank of England has a brand new film competition 'Bank, Camera, Action' and we are inviting you to get involved by making a short film about "A day in the life of the New Fiver" to coincide with the introduction of our £5 polymer note.

The opportunity is to create a film that communicates the subject in an interesting and imaginative way. Students are free to use dance, music, poetry, rap, animation, graphics, cartoons, interviews, news items or any other fantastic ideas you may have. It's completely up to you, the more creative the better! Taking part will give teams the opportunity to showcase their talents and will appeal to students studying a broad range of subjects.

We look forward to receiving your entries and seeing everyone's creative side.

Kind regards,

Mark Carney
Governor

Entry form to be submitted by Monday 10th October
(click on link and scroll to to find link to the entry form)

Banned Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi: 'The necessity to create becomes even more of an urge'

The director of the infamous This Is Not A Movie has filmed features while the Iranian authorities prohibit him from doing so – and has underlined the importance of free speech.

The film-maker Jafar Panahi, currently banned from making films in his native Iran, has issued a statement underlining the spiritual and political importance of free creativity.

He was convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda after the Iranian government took umbrage at the content of his films, and sentenced with a film-making ban, as well as a jail sentence which he has so far managed to avoid. Despite the threat of imprisonment being held over him, he has made three films since: This Is Not A Movie (smuggled to Cannes on a USB hidden in a cake), Closed Curtain, and Taxi, which will debut at the Berlin film festival this year.

Opening up about the ban, Panahi said in a statement:

'Nothing can prevent me from making films since when being pushed to the ultimate corners I connect with my inner-self and, in such private spaces, despite all limitations, the necessity to create becomes even more of an urge. Cinema as an art becomes my main preoccupation. That is the reason why I have to continue making films under any circumstances to pay my respect and feel alive.'

Panahi may no longer be under house arrest, as he documented in This Is Not A Movie, but he is not allowed to leave the country. He therefore won’t be in Berlin for the premiere of Taxi, in which a taxi driver played by Panahi has a series of encounters with passengers in his cab.

Media Guardian

Turn it over the ads are on!

This is a familiar cry in every household, either that or the commencement of the adverts are a chance to put the kettle on. It's even possible forward past the ads now so you don't have to be bothered with pushy Meerkats or exaggerated Brummies talking enthusiastically about their holidays. But adverts can offer us a moment of brevity or anguish that their big brother programmes can sometimes miss.

Adverts - good ones - are a concentrated burst of film language that can showcase what it is to create a meaningful text in less than a minute. The Media Guardian has highlighted a selection of new ads currently on our TVs that offer us a slice of the bizarre, the dramatic and the though provoking.

www.theguardian.com/media

Eyes Wide Open

If Media studies teaches you anything let teach to always question what you are shown, presented with and even force fed. In my opinion their are always three sides to every story; theirs, yours and the truth. You know yours, you are given theirs but you have to search for the truth.

Below is a link to 'Films for action' website. I am not presenting you with the truth here but I hope you will at least start asking the questions.

www.filmsforaction.org