Indoors Project turns the camera back on lockdown in an innovative isolation film festival

By Leah Martindale, Film & TV Editor

With the world turning on its head, and uncertainty at every turn, self-isolation can be either a help or a hindrance to the artists of the world. With creativity and innovation as its ethos, 19-year-old University of Bristol student Daniel Sved started the Indoors Project, an online film festival highlighting the possibility of isolation.

The Indoors Project is taking the internet by the reins in their creative reclamation of lockdown. In conversation with Sved, he described the project as ‘a short film and animation festival of work made by young people while in isolation... We gave them a really open brief about four weeks ago, a week after we went into lockdown, and sort of said: make anything you want - the only restrictions you have are the ones that are unavoidable.'

Curated by a current Bristol student, the filmmaker roster includes current students, graduates, and unconnected filmmakers, including those who had shown at Encounters film festival. The 15 contributors range from 18 to 29 years of age, and include seasoned festival professionals to filmmaking newcomers. The films have no necessity to reflect lockdown, but it is somewhat ‘unavoidable’.

| Encounters Film Festival was a showcase of spectacular short films and more

The second year Social Policy student stated: ‘It started with me writing a film with someone else for this BBC Writers submission. They were asking people to make films over webcams, and we realised that four or five of our friends were doing this.’ Unwilling to let pieces by admired artists go unseen, Sved decided to reach out and curate his own festival. Sved himself isn’t contributing: focusing rather on fostering others’ creativity.

As the outgoing New Writing Rep for Bristol DramSoc, Sved ‘really enjoyed having a position where my main job was to ensure people got to see some of the amazing work being done by students.’ This passion has clearly found its way to Indoors Project, which ‘feels to [Sved] like a continuation of that - something I really love and enjoy.’ While this may not relate directly to his degree, Sved believes this will help with future plans beyond university.

Despite stemming somewhat from the BBC Writers submission, ‘it’s become this whole entirely different thing. None of those films are actually being made,’ he says of the initial BBC submission ideas, ‘but it’s now become this thing across the country, with a lot of people I haven't even met.’

'Make anything you want - the only restrictions you have are the ones that are unavoidable'

‘Four weeks ago I put out emails to a group of artists who I really admire, asking about interest in a five week project where you work on a short film or animation: no restrictions other than the one you cannot avoid which is that we’re all in lockdown.’ From there, the timeline has been different for each person. As producer-come-curator it is Sved’s job to check in with people as they go, and the progression is unique to each artist and medium.

‘For example, animators started drawing and animating early on because it takes about 4 weeks to work on something about one minute long… For filmmakers it was practical planning on how to film something during lockdown.’ There has been ‘a lot of problem solving and meetings.’

‘How are we going to approach telling these stories while acknowledging there are clear restrictions? It's been really amazing to see how people respond to this, some people are really lucky to have gardens to film in, while others aren't as fortunate.’ One charming anecdote of Sved’s on the filmmaking process is how filmmakers are collaborating from a distance, lending their voices to others’ work and more, and roping in family members as untrained actors or unsuspecting boom pole operators.

| Rebel Film Festival - all the film reviews right here!

‘It’s important to acknowledge everyone is experiencing lockdown in many ways.’ Some filmmakers have everything they need at their fingertips, others need Sved to organise equipment getting to them - one filmmaker is even sending their film in the post to Sved to edit, as they are without editing software themselves.

‘That’s what I’ve enjoyed - adapting to challenges, because one week everything is going very smoothly on a film and the next week they’ll realise they can’t shoot a whole scene because of lockdown, and we need to entirely replan it.’

While it would have been easy to commission 16 films about lockdown, Sved 'didn't want any restrictions on the films’ content at all. ‘These were 15 people who I really looked up to as amazing filmmakers, so this is an opportunity to do what they do brilliantly.’ This festival would not foster creativity and share voices he believes deserve to be heard, if it were all a rehashing of a prescribed topic.

The films will inevitably act as a sort of time capsule. ‘It will be interesting to see films made in this short period of time - interesting to watch these films and know the context. People will be able to look back and look at what they made during this time.’ Whether lockdown lasts months after the festival finishes, or we are out before the first film is, this will serve as a memory that creativity thrived in an unprecedented age.

'If people find something important I want them to find it in the films themselves'

The festival was ‘influenced by what happens from being around so many creative people at uni… It’s difficult to watch all these people not always have their stuff shown.’ It is in this vein that the website also has a fundraising section, where they are raising submission costs to other festivals globally for all contributing artists. The works of these artists will be far from unseen.

While organising marketing and press packs is ‘a lot of work to do as one person, [it is] amazing setting up an opportunity for a group of people… To see what they are doing under the circumstances is inspiring.’ I asked why the Indoors Project was necessary at times like this, and was met by the wonderful ethos that ‘I think because there should always be something like this happening.’

| Short films at the London Film Festival

‘[The Indoors Project] is another opportunity to make things. I think it's just as important now as before.’ Sved postulates that the importance of the project, if someone like me had to put that onus on it, it ‘would come out of the films themselves. If people find something important I want them to find it in the films themselves. The project should facilitate people being able to find out if it's important or not.’

Featured: Courtesy of Indoors Project / Joe Heweton

Will you be watching the Indoors Project films from 20th May - 19th June?