First Prize for Direction at Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival!

Oscar Qualifying film festival, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) proudly announced the Award Winners for its 35th Anniversary Celebration of Flickers, on Sunday, August 13^th. We are excited to announce that Kill Off was an award winner at the festival and received first prize for direction!

Over its six-day run, the festival screened 310 films from 48 countries around the world. Films were selected from a record entry base of 6,237 submissions!

Kill Off was inclusively made through the Bus Stop Films inclusive film studies program of 2016 held at  Sydney Community College. Kill Off was directed by Genevieve Clay-Smith who mentored four director’s attachments with an intellectual disability on the project; Joni Campbell, Christine Blanch, Zakaria Ghomri and Rawley Reynolds (pictured below).

“I’m so thrilled that it even got this far,” said Christine who travelled to St Kilda Film Festival earlier in the year to represent the film. “ I thought it was really interesting. It was good to see the actors at work and get to know Abby Earl and Jamie Brewer. All of them performed well and I was impressed.”

Jamie Brewer and Abby Earl on the set of Kill Off

Joni Campbell who, while being involved in Bus Stop Films, nabbed a ScreenAbility Internship at ABC’s Play School, said that the film crew became like a second family to her. “I really loved doing the directing with Genevieve, I thought that was lots of fun and just watching the whole film come together and getting to meet everyone was amazing.”

As well as participating in a director’s attachment during the production, the students also had the chance to experience a variety of other roles and worked with mentors across various departments. “I liked doing the make up with April, the make up artist. I did production design too” Said Zakaria, who also enjoyed learning about KRUMP dance with Australian KRUMP Champion, Mark Shutdown Manahan. KRUMP, which is a LA street dance, is prominent within Kill Off’s story and is used to help the characters express their emotions. “I learned the chest pop and stomp, I really loved it.”

Mandela Mathia as Goodwill, KRUMP dancing in Kill Off

“I liked looking at the cameras and looking at the different work they were doing behind the scenes, I liked doing clapper and setting up the slate for different scenes takes”. Said Rawley who since being involved in Bus Stop, has completed work experience at Panavision and on an ABC comedy project called ‘The Lost Tapes’ created by Number One Friembs.

Filmmaker and CEO of Bus Stop Films, Genevieve Clay-Smith, hopes that the win will spur on more filmmakers to be inclusive when it comes to sharing their art, “Inclusion works – look at us, we had a total of twelve students with an intellectual disability on the set of Kill Off, the whole project was inclusive from beginning to end and the film has won first prize for direction at an Oscar Qualifying film festival, it sends a great message, that making art, telling stories, doing any kind of work can be done inclusively and it can be successful.”

While all of the students have had a unique experience of making Kill Off, the common denominator is that they all hope the film is seen by as many people as possible. For Christine, she hopes that Kill Off will be seen all over the world “I’m hoping it will get out there to many more countries to come. And I hope that everyone likes it.”

Kill Off is currently doing the rounds of the film festival circuit, to find out when it’s next screening like our Facebook page and keep up to date with the latest!