In a vibrant finalé to the China Exchange Chinese New Year celebrations, a curious crowd joined us for a special lantern festival screening of the short documentaries made in our Doc-in-a-Day challenge with London Documentary Network. Film-makers – some very experienced, some totally new to the game – had just 36 hours to create a documentary using the theme “ritual” during London’s Chinese New Year celebrations on Jan 28-29.
Seven films were submitted and screened during the evening. A panel of guest judges professional filmmakers – artist and film maker Xiaowen Zhu, Richard Melman, Executive Producer and Managing Director of the award winning Spring Films and Thomas Meadmore, the filmmaker behind How to Lose Jobs and Alienate Girlfriends, gave their feedback and awarded the prize for best documentary to “Knowing the Right Colour”, a film about tea.