MY OLD haunting ground of Young Irish Film Makers recently announced details of their second 24-hour film festival dubbed Caffeine and it’s taking place this coming Friday January 15th.

The goal is simple. You have 24 hours in which to script, shoot, edit and upload a short film to YouTube, with your entry to be no longer than five minutes.

The competition got a good reception locally when it ran last year (YIFM being based here in Kilkenny) but as it’s an online competition, the doors are open to everyone. But, of course, you can’t just go shooting a film about anything. The organisers of the competition will email all teams prior to kick-off on Friday evening with a small list of objects that must be included in your short and must be relevant to the overall plot.

The Important Details

• The Competition runs from 6pm Friday 15th of January 2010 to 6pm Saturday 16th of January 2010.
• Max members per team is six, minimum age of youngest member on team is 12.
• Films can be shot on any medium and can be of any genre – so long as (point above) objects named in your challenge are included and are relevant to your plotline.
• If you are interested in taking part, you must be registered on or before Wednesday January 14th 2010.

Signup & Details

For more details on Caffeine 2010, read this article. To register yourself, or a team, for this year’s festival please click here.

The video above is the winning short from 2009, Sclever, produced by Slackless Productions. The winning team included Stephen Colfer, Sarah Walsh, Conor Barry, Richie Cody and John Doran.

Note: Young Irish Film Makers is an innovative Irish film training and production studio where young people aged 10-18 have the opportunity to create and communicate their ideas and stories by making feature films for international television and the internet. I sit on the board of directors for Young Irish Film Makers.