ID Fest 2012 comes to an end with a jam-packed day featuring a masterclass from production designer Eve Stewart, a lecture on Sergio Leone from Sir Christopher Frayling, and the screening of competion entries for Five Lamps Films' 24hr Film Challenge.
The fourth and final day of this year's ID Fest was undoubtedly my favourite of this already incredible weekend. Perhaps a little tired from the previous three days, but certainly no less enthusiastic, we spent our Sunday at QUAD for the closing moments of ID Fest 2012.
We started our day with our own film-maker, Lara attending a masterclass with BAFTA and Oscar-nominated production designer, Eve Stewart. Having worked on massive productions such as The King's Speech, Topsy Turvy and The Damned United, Stewart was more than qualified to impart her advice.
Meanwhile, I was lucky enough to attend a lecture with film historian, Sir Christopher Frayling. The subject of the lecture was Italian director, Sergio Leone, famed for his spaghetti westerns (a term we would later learn had been coined by Frayling himself). Having quite literally written the book - three of them in fact - on Leone, Frayling was a seemingly endless source of information and anecdotes.
Talking us through the methods Leone employed with enthusiasm and charm, Frayling was engaging and insightful in equal measure, describing his subject as being akin to "Brian Blessed with an Italian accent".
Frayling talked of how Leone was determined to restore the ideology of the fairytale to the western genre, something he believed had been watered down in the american western.That said, Leone was still fond of Hollywood's contribution to the genre and would spend hours studying various productions, elements of which he would borrow to create a patchwork homage to the films in question.
My only criticism of Frayling's lecture was that the lecture itself was too short! I would have quite happily sat for another two or three hours to listen to the professor talk with such fondness about an innovative director whose work has undoubtedly stood the test of time.
Following the lecture, Lara and I stopped briefly for refreshments before the event we'd arguably been looking to more than most this weekend (and not just because friends of ours happened to be participants); 24hr Film Challenge.
Showcasing a whole cavalcade of amateur and emerging talent from local film makers both young and old, the evening was a perfect way to end the weekend. From zombie flicks to love stories and everything in between this event served as a real insight in to the untapped talent the city has to offer with one of the weekend's main attractions, Mike Hodges picking the winners.
We had our own favourites which we'll be featuring in an article on the site in the next few days.
Following the awards, all that was left was for QUAD's Director of Audience Engagement, Adam Buss to thank everyone involved with the weekend and to announce next year's festival theme; 'Family', with the festival itself taking place from May 10th to May 12th.
A sense of enormous privilege was the overriding feeling as we left our blog station for the final time, to have been present at such a significant and spectacular festival, the importance of which reaches not only to cinema, but to Derby and its residents.
We enjoyed the whole weekend immensely, from screenings of some of our favourite films, to receiving invaluable advice, to being utterly starstruck at meeting some of our heroes from the world of film. A great weekend, a fantastic festival, and some incredible memories.
To find out more about all the great events that took place over the festival, visit the ID Fest website.
Words from and .