Cover Your Ears

This was super entertaining, and the cinematography was absolutely breathtaking.
The mystery was really engaging, and the scale was impressive.

Nice movie with good comic timing. Loved the guy they dug up to play the cult leader or whatever he is. The best kind of 48 Hours actor, like someone’s Dad who’s happy to pitch in, every slightly “off” line reading had me giggling and made me genuinely happy, made my heart genuinely warm. Loved your work buddy. Get him on Go Girls or Orange Roughies if either of those are still on TV?

I loved this film. one of my favorite to come out of Christchurch this year. i laughed so loud when he killed that random girl. amazing comedic timing.

Such a good film! Great concept and really well executed. The performances are on point and perfectly kiwi.

A more light-hearted take on the culty themes that I raised in my own film, and which come up often in 48Hours. But this really turned the idea of cults on its head. Usually they're big on recruiting. This one absolutely isn't recruiting, making it so ludicrous that the cult even exists and has members. Usually they're so earnest on their beliefs, yet this cult leader will disavow them just to get the potential new recruit off his back. Usually they're a crock of shit, yet this cult turns out to be right on the money. I will admit though, it feels quite culty to target such arbitrary parts of modern culture as lululemon and matcha and blame them on the Government.

I love seeing how passionate the recruit is about every grizzly task assigned to him. The bootlicking gets a visceral reaction of disgust from the audience. Hey, I'm into it!

An eager new recruit is willing to do whatever it takes to get inducted into his favourite cult.

This was such a different take on the cult storyline, and I had so much fun with it! It was silly, over the top and mildly unsettling all throughout! That bootlicking sequence got such a visceral response from the audience in the heats on the night, which is a testament to how engaged you got everyone with this story! The shots were also great looking, and those ECUs of Chris contemplating whether to infiltrate the sermon, mixed with that unsettling music underneath really painted him well as a crazed fan doing whatever it takes to get ‘in’.

My one suggestion to look at for next time would be setting - the location you had for the cult didn’t feel like a secretive cult trying to hide away from society. I think if you had found somewhere that suited more of the vibe than what looked to be a classroom, you’d be away laughing! But as far as detracting from the story goes, it was minimal, as the rest of your execution was so on point!

A great fun romp of a watch, and excited to see how far this goes! Congrats on the shortlisting!

I forgot to say, I'm a fan of the 14:9 aspect ratio. It gives this film an early-2000s vibe (the weird transition from "square" TV to widescreen).

I reken you were robbed of the finals with this film. It was definitely better than a few that made it in. But that’s just how it goes sometimes. The real winners are announced in the fake awards anyway.

What fun to see some familiar faces! A warm welcome to those of you from this team trying the comp out for the first time, and a welcome back to a few of you 48hours veterans!

This film was GORGEOUS to look at. Some incredible technical craft on display here, along with a great score from a beautiful Marcus. Conceptually, very strong. The first 2 minutes of this was one of the strongest setups we had.

Thennnnnn the gunshot fired - and while it was funny, it immediately flipped what we expected from this film on it's head, and we knew the judges would be split on this choice. The decision to go to a montage of unsual antics, that were sorta funny, but not particuarly scary, was unfortunately a drawback for the judges. There was no real escelation, and then there's the bigger question of 'why is this cult leader jumping from not wanting recruits, to wanting to make this dude do random crap, to wanting them and revealing it's all fake'. If this story was mostly focused on the creepyness of the cult, and the leads desperation to sneak in without getting caught, maybe that mix of scary cault and comedic fella would have sold it. Alas, the tonal shifts and disjointed ideas just left us scratching our heads, which is a real shame because it overshadows a technical craft that was incredibly strong. This is one of a few films this year that deserved a spot in the finals if you judge on technical alone, but didn't score high enough due to the classic rule of Story is King.

THE BEST THING: Great initial setup, atmosphere, music and cinematography.

THE NEXT THING: Come back again and take a bit more time to plan out how you're going to bridge your ideas. Absolutely fizzing to see more from this team! We'll see you next year!