News

24 Oct 2006
The Birth of Iris

When the two members of The Festivals Company Limited – Berwyn Rowlands and James Nee – decided to devise an international gay and lesbian short film prize they knew it would need a strong and unique identity in order to assert its place within the global filmmaking community. Countless hours were exhausted and numerous bottles of white wine consumed, but the team still couldn’t come up with a name for their ambitious project. Just as James suggested moving onto the red wine, Berwyn had the idea of contacting Green Land Design to ask for their help. Both James and Berwyn had previous experience of working with Green Land before and both had the scars to prove it, although Berwyn’s looked more like a scratch. Consisting of an ex-pat Canadian named Kara and a man from the Midlands with a background in science named Simon, Green Land were well known for their original and distinctive design. After a night of unparalleled debauchery with the Festival team, Kara and Simon set off to find an identity for the world’s largest gay and lesbian short film prize. A few days later, Iris was born and The Festivals Company is extremely grateful for all of Kara and Simon’s hard work and proud and delighted to be working with them once again. Here’s the birth of Iris in Kara’s words:

mesilaugh"We feel honoured to have worked with The Festivals Company from the early heady days of the prize’s inception and are thrilled to support a queer film event, specifically short film as this is generally the realm of new, fresh, indie and experimental producers."

"We gathered very quickly that this prize would be something special. The team obviously had grand ideas and their experience left us in no doubt they would pull this off."

"After our initial meeting, my notes included: world-wide, biggest, best-in-class, star, top, freedom, liberation, acceptance, tolerance, outreach, communicating, broadcasting, connecting, supporting, and to research precious metals, stars, planets and gods and goddesses."

"With the design we didn’t want to resort to gay clichés or film clichés! Yet, we also wanted something that encapsulated what this prize signified. A lot of research ensued and Iris appeared upon a rainbow – she was perfectly golden, winged and full of significance. She also had this classic film/ Greek thing going on, which was interesting to work with."

"Iris is the immortal messenger, the communicator, the link between gods and men, the conciliator who restores peace in nature. In some ancient poems, the rainbow is called Iris, in others the rainbow is the road on which she travels – at her will – whenever she calls upon it. And Iris spoke to us about vision and light, and individuality. For us, this is what the prize is all about".

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