The First Feature Film Shot On a Cell Phone

Check out how Down and Dirty they get in Italy. Italian filmmaker's Marcello Mencarini and Barbara Seghezzi shot their feature-length doc, "New Love Meetings" on a Nokia cellphone. I shit you not.

The movie is an updated version of the 1965 Italian documentary, "Love Meetings", by Pier Paolo Pasolini. They shot some 700 interviews using a Nokia N90 cellphone that holds about 1 hour of video and whittled the footage down to 100 interviews with people discussing their love and sex lives and attitudes about sex. The whole thing cost them a few thousand dollars, most of which was spent on travel an hotels.

They are still exploring options for distribution. Undoubtedly, all the attention their unique choice of recording medium has garnered will make distribution much more likely, similar to the unfolding story of the "Four-Eyed Monsters" team which I posted back in January.

No it ain't a High Def XDcam, but they've got compelling content, a completed feature film and publicity splashed across the pages of USA Today, Yahoo News, Showbizdata.com and I'm sure a dozen other major publications around the world. I don't know about you, but I think that's a damn good result having started with an idea, a cell phone and a few thousand bucks.

Click here to read the USA Today article on "New Love Meetings".

Yet another example of how imagination, creativity, and let's face it- outright balls, can trump a lack of money and traditional resources. That people is the essence of the Down and Dirty DV philosophy...

It doesn't take money to make films, it takes resources.

Stop trying to mimic the methodologies of maintream filmmakers that have more cash and resources than you'll ever have and start trying to figure out ways to maximize the resources you do have at your disposal. Focus on the content. Get creative with your execution and storytelling and you will get results. As Sly and the Family Stone would say...

Free your mind and the rest will follow.

(Or was that the Staple Singers?) Either way, Barbara and Marcello are bonified straight-up guerrillas. 'Til next time. I'm out.

-Ant.