Lowestoft’s Sunrise Film Festival has celebrated a record-breaking year, drawing over 2,000 audience members across four vibrant days at the Marina Theatre and Sam’s Wellbeing Hub + Cafe.
The festival’s success was powered by the dedication of 25 volunteers who worked tirelessly to ensure a seamless experience for all attendees. In a groundbreaking move, the festival also enlisted the help of 125 volunteers for the pre-selection of short films across the year, focusing on key themes that the festival’s programme focuses on such as Mental Health, LGBTQIA+ community, lived experience, and social and environmental issues.
This year, Sunrise Film Festival took a monumental step by becoming BIFA (British Independent Film Awards) qualifying, with 18 prestigious awards presented during its red-carpet award ceremony. These accolades included 10 competition category awards and 8 craft awards for the highest-scoring films of the 2024 edition.
Among the standout winners was Seeing Read, a short comedy that won the ‘Best East Coast Short Film’ award, a category designed to recognise independent films created by residents of Lowestoft or Great Yarmouth.
The sister duo behind the film, directors Beth Perkin and Natasha Perkin from Lowestoft, expressed their excitement, saying, “We are still so honoured to have won our first award for Seeing Read at our hometown film festival. This award means so much, and we were pleased to have been able to take it away with our own comedy, which is quite rare on the UK film festival circuit.”
Another local short film that was nominated for 4 awards was a student made short film entitled Aquaphobia directed by Annalisa Cawthra, and on the night took away the craft awards for Best Story, Emily Kennedy and the Sunrise Studios special recognition. Sharing there excitement Annalisa said, “Aquaphobia is a very important piece for me, stemming from all the love and appreciation that I have for my own sister. I have been so moved by the personal connections that others have drawn from the film: with both crew and cast in the process of making the film to amazing events like this.”
Sunrise was the first festival we have been to and it meant so much for me to just share the film with a wider audience by being screened, but we were so overwhelmed by the amount of love that the film recieved with Best Story, Best Actor and the Special Recognition Award. All I have ever wanted to do with film is create emotion that lasts, that makes an audience sit with that feeling and think and the fact that Aquaphobia, my first film, achieved this at Sunrise gives me such a boost as a young filmmaker, as I know it does for the rest of my team. It’s such a special feeling to have others connect to something with part of you in it and take away something for themselves.”
As the festival celebrates its triumphant edition this year, the team is already preparing for the fourth edition, set to take place in Lowestoft in May 2025.
Joshua Freemantle, the co-founder of the Sunrise Film Festival, reflected on the festival’s achievements, stating, “This year has been nothing short of extraordinary. The passion and commitment from our volunteers, the support from our community, the incredible talent showcased and support by filmmakers have all contributed to making this the most successful year in our festival’s history. We are already looking ahead to 2025 with the same enthusiasm and dedication.”
This year’s festival was supported generously by our sponsors once again this year, which included Lovell who were our 2024 sustainability partner, and you can find out more about Lovell in Norfolk + Suffolk here. The 3rd edition also included support from GXO who were our official Volunteers partner, and their backing helped us keep all of our volunteers fuelled across the four days.
As Sunrise Film Festival continues to grow, the founders and volunteers behind the festival are keen to receive more entries from filmmakers across Norfolk and Suffolk and wants to emphasize that the method or scale of production should never be a barrier to submission, and dedicated categories to spotlight East Anglian Student’s and filmmakers on the East Coast will continue be part of the festival.
For more information on the festival’s short film competition categories and important deadlines, visit the Sunrise Film Festival’s website at sunrisefilmfestival.co.uk.