San Diego's Global Smartphone Film Festival Innovation

How many smartphones does it take to make 53 movies around the world? We are not sure, but here are some numbers that may help! Three feature-length films and 50 short films, all shot with smartphone cameras, took part in the 10th Anniversary edition of San Diego's International Mobile Film Festival 2021 last weekend.

The IMFF launched in the Spring of 2009 and held its inaugural festival with a handful of movies, all shot with mobile phones, during the last weekend of April each year since 2012.

The festival has been a live event in San Diego with a traditional program: Q&A Sessions, workshops, red carpet, awards ceremony and a showcasing of films on large screens. The difference to other festivals, from the onset, was that all films had to be shot with a cell phone camera.

It never mattered which brand, especially since the idea was launched before the iPhone 4 came with the first HD (high definition) camera. It also never mattered what equipment was used to film other than the camera. The audio could be captured externally and editing the movies did not have to take place on the phone. Although the festival introduced allowing not more than 10% drone aerial footage in shorts and feature films, the principle of allowing only films shot with smartphone cameras remains.

During the weekend of April 23, 24 & 25 the festival held its festival online bringing the mobile filmmaking community from all over the world to San Diego, virtually. The festival kicked off with an opening video presentation shot at its usual festival location at Marina Village. One of the festival's sponsor Star Wars Steampunk Universe arranged one of its members, Dude Vader to co-host the opening with festival founder, Susy Botello at the water front.

The setting of the location for the kick off presentation brought a global audience to San Diego and introduced them to the festival's past film festivals with a montage of past festival events and creative video messages from some of the participating filmmakers from the U.S. and other countries.

The International Mobile Film Festival, branded as International Mobil Film Festival™, presented by S. Botello Productions™ (SBP) each year, enjoys a team of global ambassadors which include actors from The Hobbit films. Jed Brophy and Mark Hadlow, in New Zealand, played Nori and Dori in The Hobbit. They also took part in the Jury Panels for shorts and feature film awards this year. Three other ambassadors are Vesna Ristovska, Aaron Nabus and Rich Vizor.

The festival's online event took place on the first smartphone film and video streaming distribution service, for the global mobile filmmaking community, in the world. MobileFilmStories.com is a new platform that launched officially in September 2020. It hosts films for streaming VOD (video on demand) and PPV (pay per view).

On Saturday, April 24, the founder hosted a live Q&A in the forum space for the website, The Quad. The public forum was created as a community forum space for smartphone filmmakers to connect with one another, collaborate on projects, discuss techniques, needs and share stories. Members create a free profile. During the online festival, it had a special section for the festival filmmakers to meet with each other and virtual attendees on its Virtual Lobby.

The Awards Ceremony was also held online with a video presentation where Susy Botello hosted the ceremony introducing the red carpet as an online event which was an entertaining montage of past filmmakers escorted by cosplay characters from Star Wars Steampunk Universe and then she introduced the judges, with a video from each including Jed Brophy and Mark Hadlow from New Zealand, Shola Ajayi in Africa, and Kimberley Hart in Australia. Two other judges from Indiana were also named: Demetrius Witherspoon and Nathan Bechtold.

The awards presented were as follows:

Charon (iPhone 8 Plus) - Best Feature Film - by Jennifer Zhang, California

War Is Not A Game (iPhone 11 Pro) - First Place Short Film - by Arthur Mikheev, Russia

A Train To Home (iPhone 6 & 7) - Second Place Short Film (featured Community Stories) by Razi Uddin, Pakistan

Shifted (iPhone 11 Pro) - Third Place Short Film by Ben Treston, United Kingdom

The filmmaker for Charon, Jennifer Zhang, shot her entire film on the iPhone, acted, directed and edited her entire film in the phone using an app that was not designed for editing films, Video Shop. As far as we can tell, this may be the first feature film shot and edited on the phone. The movie was 1 hr. 13 minutes long. Jennifer shot and finalized her film in Los Angeles during the lockdown caused by the pandemic last year.

in the festival's event programing page, you can read about all the short films, the event itself, and the other feature films in the competition: So Sicily by Jai Sharma and Chandan Roy Sanyal from India; and Threshold by Patrick R Young and Powell Robinson from California.

Over the years the festival has grown from the inaugural festival which brought a filmmaker from Macedonia. During past live events, the festival brought filmmakers to San Diego for their annual celebration of smartphone movie making. They have come from as far as Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Indonesia, the U.K., Spain; and other countries like Chile and Canada. Filmmakers have also come from different places around the United States, and cities in California, including San Diego.

While the festival has a special featured category, Community Stories, it offers suggestions to other categories like the ultimate mobile film, in which the entire process from shooting to editing is done on the phone. You can see the categories in their website's Rules page.

S. Botello Productions™ created the SBP Podcast Mobile Filmmaking exclusively for anyone interested in smartphone film and video. It also created the unaccredited San Diego Mobile Film School, which held workshops and seminars before the pandemic.

You can watch the Kick Off presentation and Awards Ceremony on MobileFilmStories.com

The International Mobile Film Festival opens for both feature and short films submissions June 19, 2021 to close before the end of 2021.

The 11th Annual International Mobile Film Festival will take place in San Diego April 29 thru May 1, 2022. There are many filmmakers looking forward to attending the in-person event in San Diego.

S. Botello Productions™ seeks a venue sponsor to host and celebrate the 2022 festival with its Red Carpet Extravaganza, workshops, smartphone film and video presentations, Q&A Panels, the awards ceremony, and vendors.

Mobile smartphone filmmakers and producers have been coming to our event for years. The mobile filmmaking community is looking forward to celebrating storytelling through film using smartphones and perhaps, the return to normalcy after an extensive worldwide pandemic that shut down live in-person events in our beautiful San Diego.

2021 Sponsors:

FilmConvert | Engraving Pros | Nabus Media | Mobile Film Stories | Star Wars Steampunk Universe | Swords & Circuitry Studios

© 2021 S. Botello Productions™. All rights reserved.