This year’s Hidden Genius award has been given, after much chin scratching and rumination, to the team that really earned it. After many years of competing in DVMISSION 48 Hour Film Challenge and a few awards here and there along the way. Worcester Massive pulled off a cinematic tour de force with their entry for the 2021 challenge. So for the 2021 DVMISSION 48 Hour Film Challenge, we can, at last, announce that Worcester Massive are the winners of the Hidden Genius award.
This year they were nominated for a well-deserved Best Actress for a compelling Russian interrogator. They were also just pipped to the post for Spirit of DVMISSION by a group of teenagers from Prop Box Youth Theatre. Hopefully the massive were not too dispirited after that (see what I did there). Nevertheless, the judges describe the film as a “a marvellous ensemble production with great lines, beautifully constructed mise en scene and a rusty donkey from the crew I would most like to drink with”. A feeling that I think echoes most of our feelings at DVMISSION HQ given we haven’t been drinking with anyone for close to a year.
However, what swung it for us was the sunglasses. A truly Hitchcockian motif that is deployed in service of the story in a way that suggests that, while Worcester Massive may appear to be an unruly assemblage of party animals. They are in fact true masters (and mistresses) of the cinematic arts. The use of such a sophisticated storytelling device gave the game away and we had them nailed for the Hidden Genius’s they really are. The use of locations and the international cast also gave them up to our investigators and the pretence they are a non-professional team will no longer be tolerated.
Sadly, due to an oversight on the organisers part (they have already been dispatched to the Gulag), we have no award, we don’t even have a Pizza Express voucher. However, at the earliest opportunity, we solemnly swear to treat the team to a round of beverages at a boozer of their choice.
The 2021 Challenge Obstructions were:
- Genre: Cold War Spy Movie
- Title: Deception Point
- Dialogue: “Do you know what love is? I’ll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.”
- Extra Obstruction: an eastern European location (the extra obstruction is for previous winners).
#DVMISSION21 was sponsored by Creative Network South, University of Portsmouth and Cllr. Steve Pitt.
