Roehampton Guerrillas (2011-2016) (2017)

Beg Steal Borrow's William Brown is proud to curate Roehampton Guerrillas (2011-2016), a showcase of short films made by participants in William's Guerrilla Filmmaking class, which he has been teaching at the University of Roehampton, London, since 2011. The class involves students making a series of short films that involve both a technical and a thematic constraint - akin in some respects to Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth's The Five Obstructions (2003), which is the first film that participants watch as part of the class. The class also invites participants to draw on a history of guerrilla filmmaking from around the world, reading important texts and manifestos by filmmakers like Julio García Espinosa, Fernando E. Solanas and Octavio Getino, Glauber Rocha, Jia Zhangke and Wu Wenguang. Participants also watch and gain inspiration from work by zero- to micro-budget filmmakers like Giuseppe Andrews, Ai Weiwei, Khavn de la Cruz, Mike Ott and Harmony Korine. Roehampton Guerrillas (2011-2016) features 39 short films by 31 different filmmakers, and which respond to eight different challenges set to participants on the course. The films, chosen from among 100s made during the first five years of the Guerrilla Filmmaking course, are all packed in to a 127-minute running time. Short on time, with no technical support, and forced to make films about topics and using techniques that are not of their choosing, the Roehampton Guerrillas prove the following:- You don't need money to make a film. You don't even need a camera. You only need an idea. Limitations do not hinder creativity. They drive it.