Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Leeds Beckett lecturer hosts free showing of Oscar-nominated film
Taking place in G02 of the Woodhouse Building at Leeds Beckett’s city campus on Tuesday 11 October from 6pm, the showing is open to all and will be followed by a question and answer session with Philip (pictured above).
The 21-minute prize-winning short film tells the real life story of two boys whose friendship is tested to its limits as they battle for survival during the Kosovo war in 1998. The word ‘shok’ is the Albanian word for ‘friend’.
Shok Trailer from Jamie Donoughue on Vimeo.
Shok was nominated for an Oscar in 2016 in the live action shorts category and has so far won 22 international film festival prizes.
Phillip said: “My involvement in Shok stems from my time in Leeds, studying Cinematography at the Northern Film School (NFS). It was through Howard Dawson, the main contact at the NFS Film Lab North (FLN), that I received the script in the summer of 2014. Howard is always supportive of students’ work and is a great mentor and he stayed in contact with me throughout my career as a director of photography. And this script was great and I felt it was a story that had to be told. So, I immediately said yes to shooting this film.”
The majority of the filming crew were locals from Kosovo. Philip explained: “Working with this crew was great. We wanted to make sure that we brought back a film from Kosovo that was appropriately photographed and told a true and honest story. Their input was extremely valuable to all of us and to this wonderful story. And it helped greatly dealing with varied challenges we had to deal with. It was a great experience all round.
“I am excited to have contributed to this film which gives us a snapshot of ‘man's inhumanity to man’ (Robert Burns) witnessed all over Kosovo at the time. Perhaps the film resonates with audiences as it parallels what I am seeing on the daily news. Shok tells the story of recent European history that perhaps not all of us knew about, portraying real events.”
Philip is an internationally-renowned Cinematographer for film and TV, with credits that include Werewolf: The Beast Among Us, Frozen, You and I, and Rokland. He has won two Kodak Vision Awards for cinematography and has studied in Russia and the UK. He holds an MA in Film Production from the Northern Film School, as well as qualifications in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
For more information about Shok, please see IMDB, Facebook and Twitter @shokshortfilm. The trailer can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/128283119.