Thoughts & Things

Film Challenge 2017

At the beginning of 2016, I started my first film challenge on facebook. I created it mainly for myself. I've always had an interest in film, and I started to fully realise how much film I had really missed out on, as well as how much I just didn't know. I have always enjoyed book challenges, and pushing my boundaries when it comes to music, but I have never properly done the same when it comes to film. I knew I had seen more than many, but it just didn't seem like enough given the interest I had in it. The challenge had a main twenty-five tasks for the year, with a bonus five to create an even thirty. Each task was a broad category that you had to watch a film you had never seen before from. Genre didn't matter, as long as it fit the category and you had never seen it before. I set it up as a facebook group for friends and family to join in on so that I could have company. I also previously made a blog post about it, here: "Film Challenge" 

I actually finished my challenge (including the bonus tasks) before the middle of the year came, and I had a few people fairly invested in it as well. It really opened my eyes to the amount of stuff I have missed out on. I ended up watching over a half dozen silent films as a result, which I have found I really enjoy a great deal. I fell in love with Austenland (which I watched under the "female directed" category) and But I'm a Cheerleader (which I watched for the LGBTQ+ category). I watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) a number of Kevin Smith films, as I had never seen one before. I watched Moolade (an African film) and Carandiru (a South American film), both of which I loved, and neither of which I would have been likely to see without pushing myself to try harder.

Now that it is 2017, I have started another film challenge. I'm using the same facebook group, but I have set up a new full list of categories. This year I have twenty-four main tasks (two per month), with an additional twelve tasks (to bring it to three per month) as a bonus round. I've only watched two so far; Secrets of War (a Dutch film, watched for the non-English category); and Little Miss Sunshine (which I watched for a film to pass the Bechdel Test). I enjoyed both of these, so I'd say the challenge is going pretty well so far. I'm really looking forward to what the rest of the challenges are going to bring to the table for me, and I just know they are going to be as fun and exploratory as last year's picks. Even the few picks I didn't enjoy on last year's challenge were still fun to hate-watch.

For anyone interested in the challenge, you can request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1721020828133342