AIB student film makes it into Cologne Short Film Festival Unlimited!
When I first came to Bonn with our study abroad program, I had no idea what was in store for me as far as making a documentary was concerned. I had never done one before and was excited for the challenges that would come with making a film in a foreign country. Originally, I had planned to make a much different documentary, but circumstances changed and left me to scramble for a new topic before our deadline. I have always been a lover of extreme sports and decided that I wanted to make a film about an obscure aspect of that world. What was my choice? Extreme Ironing of course!! No one had really heard of it before, so it was about time they did.
I mostly intended this to be a fun, goofy documentary, something that I would enjoy making at the very least. I never expected it to turn into what it was. When I arrived in England, however, with my partner Matt Christensen, we immediately recognized that our star Richard French (aka Frenchy) had a lot more to tell than just stories about a goofy sport. For the last ten years, he has worked as a sniper for the British Royal Army and has served on various tours to Afghanistan and Iraq. We quickly found out that he and his friends choose such an extreme pass time in order to help them cope with their extreme jobs.
With plenty of help from the staff and professors at the AIB, I was able to develop my story into a look at what life is like for these soldiers, on and off the battlefield of war. This film probably would’ve never been made in another setting. All of my professors and fellow students in our study abroad program were very supportive of such an “out there” idea for a film. They had their doubts about it, but in the end, they helped me pull through and make a film I am proud of.
The film program in Bonn, Germany offered me and many other students an excellent opportunity to experience different cultures and people that we never would’ve had a chance to otherwise. Best of all, they created an environment where we were allowed to explore any idea that came to our minds and help you to produce great films from those ideas. I will always look back to Bonn as the start of what will hopefully be my long career of producing documentary films!
Written by Abbey Nelson
