Category: BEST MUSIC VIDEO – 2024 ARFF BERLIN

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Blackbird

Director’s Name: Robert Taira Wilson

Writer’s Name: Robert Taira Wilson

Producer: Robert Taira Wilson

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: Japan

Language: English

Runtime: 3 minutes 3 seconds

Film Description:

I am fascinated by the imposing nature of the city around me. The city is my prison, yet I feel no hostility towards it. It comforts me. I feel a conflicting mix of emotions. I value freedom, yet I voluntarily imprison myself here. Modern life, with its ever increasing connectivity and population, is like being a single cell within a huge creature. I lay down on a clear, moonless night and look up. The sky, so heavy with stars, presses me into the ground below. I look out into an infinite plane which I’m unable to reach and I know my insignificance. In the loss of control I find liberation. Similarly, when I move among innumerable buildings, when I ride the trains with millions of others, I transcend the physical limitations and feel spiritually connected to something much bigger than myself. Insignificant, yet still a part. This is the paradox. So, unlike a bird, who actually understands freedom, we cage ourselves voluntarily. But, it is in these physical and social boundaries, routines, relationships and responsibilities that we find our meaning and purpose. We strap ourselves with chains to the system but then fantasize about breaking them. This is a work about the internal conflict between how we imagine ourselves to be and how we really are.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: The Girl Who Faded Away

Director’s Name: Brent Heise

Writer’s Name: Brent Heise

Producer: George Daly

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes 34 seconds

Film Description:

A man is walking on the edge of deep woods, holding an old wooden case. A white owl in the trees takes notice of him and swoops down. In a puff of smoke the owl transforms and becomes a beautiful female apparition. The “Girl” warns him against going further in these woods. The man stops and he sets his wood case on a fallen tree trunk. He opens it. Inside is an old fashioned turntable, a wind-up phonograph he cranks before carefully placing the needle on an old, black vinyl record.

The music crackles and plays and a story unfolds. He experiences a vision: he is approaching an exotic country estate with its entranceway resembling an exotic, metal bird cage. He’s there and he steps in and sees the Girl waiting for him. He pursues her, but she is always one step ahead, able to disappear by magic, or secretly walking behind him, uncatchable. Finally, the man is able to engage her in just one loving dance with the song that is still playing. But the beautiful apparition suddenly pulls away, fading away into thin air. And just as the music fades she deserts him.

The vision gone, there at the edge of the woods, the man, abandoned by love, begins his long trek into his lonely future, literally, into his sunset with many miles ahead of him. As he departs into the stormy dark cloud fields, the owl screeches from her nest above the man. Abandoned by the man, the owl transforms one last time to the Girl Who Faded Away. She stands where the man stood, looking at him as he journeys forever away, a tear on her cheek, and mourning forever his departure.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: POSSESSION

Director’s Name: Max Westwell

Writer’s Name: Max Westwell

Producer: Max Westwell

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 3 minutes 10 seconds

Film Description:

Possession is a dance video that is a sensory experience, inviting spectators to lose themselves in the infectious pulse of the music and the artistry of movement. The choreography is reflecting the escalating energy of the beat which is synchronised seamlessly with the dynamic movements of the camera.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: New Me

Director’s Name: Chico Bennett

Writer’s Name: Chico Bennett

Producer: Star Soltan

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes 24 seconds

Film Description:

Star2 is a new man in this over-the-top music video “New Me,” which features performances from Soulja Boy and Luh Kel, directed by Chico Bennett and filmed by Hector Toro. Set in a sleek, multi-million-dollar, ultra-modern mansion with two Lamborghinis and a white Rolls Royce Cullinan SUV in the driveway, Star2 hosts a pool party with a backyard full of frolicking, thong-wearing beauties…spraying whipped cream on each other, splashing Luh Kel and Star2 in a Jacuzzi filled with $100 bills, and twerking beside Big Draco in his orange Lambo.
Star2’s new life includes living female “statues” adorning his hallways, and sexy French maids in fishnet stocking who feed him grapes and greet guests… including showing guest Soulja Boy to his in-house strip-club, “Club Star2” where Soulja and Star2 enjoy a private show and fire money guns filled with “Star2 Dollars” at the dancers.
An angry neighbor, who’s not too thrilled with his rap neighbor (Star2) appears at the beginning, but is later co-opted into the debauchery, getting lifted in the air by the sexy sirens. Bathing beauty Courtney Heagle is a standout in an orange and leopard bi-color bikini.
Star2 holds his own with veteran Soulja Boy and St. Louis R&B crooner and pretty-boy Luh Kel, who is releasing an EP with Star2 in 2024.
The song opens with a boisterous string section and chronicles Star2’s journey from rags to riches, “Back when I was broke, they didn’t even know me. Now I’m poppin’ like hella bitches love me…”
Says Star2, “making this song with Soulja Boy and Luh Kel was unreal. The set was lit with beautiful women, water-gun fights, whipped cream and hella dope cars.” Eyeing yet another thonged beauty walking past the pool Star2 notes, “this is every man’s dream.”
Indeed, Star2 began his life in a refugee camp in Thailand, abandoned by his teen-aged mother fleeing genocide from the Burmese army in Myanmar who, attacked their village and burned it to the ground. A lottery in the camp resulted in his passage to San Diego with his grandmother and her four children.
Star2’s new me began in San Diego as a young child and has continued into a promising hip hop career as a young adult.