Five Minutes Till Noon wins short film competition

Five Minutes Till Noon was produced by Epilogue Pictures and TH Films, and swept the awards ceremony when it took home 10 awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Producer. The film stars Scot Cooper, Christine Amalia Tesco and Niyaaz Adonis.

Writer/producer, Kyle St John Peters who attended the awards said that the recognition they received blew them away. Peters said: "There were some really great films we were up against so we were ecstatic when we won."

Writer/director, John de Vries said: "We are so proud that we get to represent Cape Town in the US next year and get to be part of putting South African filmmaking on the map."

Three specific things to include

The competition had over 25 teams in and around Cape Town racing to finish their films in time. Each team was given a specific genre, and then all the teams were given three specific things to include: a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue.

This year the prop was an envelope, the character was Neil/Nandi Msimang the stylist, and the line of dialogue was "You gonna learn", no doubt inspired by Trevor Noah. The genre that Five Minutes Till Noon was given was Western.

The 48 Hour Film Project takes place in over 120 cities worldwide, and each city sends its winning film to represent them at the Annual Filmpalooza in the United States. Next year it will be held in New Orleans and Five Minutes Till Noon will have the honour of representing Cape Town. The top 10 films will then be screened at Cannes Film Festival Short Corner.

Several of the crew members worked together earlier in the year on the award-winning short film Scapegoat, which won awards in Los Angeles. That film was shot in Du Noon Township, and once again, several of the Du Noon residents were invited to be part of the crew. Among them was Nevil Sandama, a friend and regular collaborator with the crew. He portrayed the character of Neil Msimang and the team also won the award for Best Use of Character.

The success of the film would not have been possible without the fantastic collaboration of nearly 40 individuals. Director John de Vries said: "I had the best crew. This film could not have been made without each and every one of those people's hard work and creativity."

The cast and crew are now looking forward to sending their film around the world to other festivals where they will be hoping to emulate the success they have had at home.

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