Want $1500 for Your Short Film? Join the Bureau of Creative Works
We pinch pennies, then use those pennies to make our films. Wouldn't it be great if we actually got paid pennies to shoot the shorts we're so hellbent on making?
That's exactly what the Bureau of Creative Works wants to do. Their goal: increase the value of short films as an art form and pay artists to make them. How? The first half of their model is to give 12 filmmakers $1500-$3000 each to make a short film. The second half is to house a subscription-based platform for filmmakers & film lovers to watch the shorts as they come out over the course of 12 months.
Founded by bonafide independent-filmmaker-duo Erica Hampton and Mike Ambs, the Bureau has a grant submission for this year's two remaining filmmaker spots, and a Kickstarter campaign for subscriptions. If you subscribe on Kickstarter, the Bureau waives the submission fee of the grant, and you get all twelve films to boot.
Beyond just getting funds to make your short, the appeal of a platform like the Bureau is the prospect of growing a more viable short film community. Writing for No Film School, I see how many talented and thoughtful filmmakers are out there making amazing short films on a daily basis, without being able to make it a career. From Mike Ambs and Erica Hampton about the Bureau's hopes to change that:
Filmmakers spend $10k,$ 20k, $80k of our own money, that we don't have, to produce our work. We spend thousands submitting to festivals, we spend thousands just to hand over our work to distributors who often don't take the time or energy to promote what we've worked so hard to create. The BUREAU is the opposite of the this system, in every sense - and we hope that filmmakers will become a part of the community, to help it grow it, to help guide it, and to help make a unified statement that *this* is how things should work. We shouldn't settle for a system that constantly scrapes off the top. We hope that people will respond to what we're doing - we think it can have a real impact, not just in terms of opportunity for the 12 filmmakers each year, but a real impact on the audiences perception of films and their value.
What's the Bureau looking for in a film grant applicaiton? Capable filmmakers with a strong voice, who will use the opportunity to experiment. A big part of the decision process will come from looking at your past work. And while the Bureau is just getting started this year, they have big plans for the future. From Mike and Erica:
We have such big plans for The BUREAU! We are working hard to grow our audience, our partners and resources for participating filmmakers, and to continue to provide small production budgets for 12 films each year. Depending on how we grow, possibly more per year! We will steadfastly stand by our goal of providing a low pressure environment where filmmakers are free to experiment and create work that might otherwise never be made.
For a little over two hours, I was glued to my seat in the AMC Century City, fascinated and entralled in the world of the tennis dramaChallengers.
This masterful movie, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor, is sexy, unflinching, and leaves audiences pondering its final moments.
The film, filled with flashbacks and unspoken emotions, culminates in a high-stakes match between childhood friends Art and Patrick, vying for a win that transcends the scoreboard. But the true victory, the movie suggests, lies elsewhere.
Let's explore.
Spoilers for the movie Challengers to come...
Challengers Movie Summary
In the movie Challengers, Tashi, a former tennis star turned coach, sees her husband Art, a once-dominant professional player, sinking into a slump.
Seeking to restore his fire, she enters him in a low-level "Challenger" tournament, expecting easy wins. However, her plan unravels when Art faces his estranged childhood friend and Tashi's ex-boyfriend, Patrick, whose own career has fizzled into mediocrity.
This unexpected reunion throws the trio's intertwined past into stark relief, revealing a history of intense friendship, youthful ambition, romantic entanglements, and unspoken betrayals.
As flashbacks weave through the present, Challengers explores the fragility of male friendship, particularly when fueled by competition, ambition, and a shared love for the same woman.
These flashbacks also expose the sacrifices Tashi made when her promising tennis career was cut short by injury. And how Art took care of her, and married her. But her passion for Patrick still burned hot, and their love triangle got even more complicated.
The focus of the film culminates in the climactic match between Art and Patrick. This battle transcends sport—it becomes a raw, physical confrontation with a past they cannot outrun.
In the final frames, they're playing a tie breaker, going back and forth.
So what happens next?
Challengers Ending Explained
Director Luca Guadagnino opts for an ambiguous ending, leaving the final point of the match unseen.
Art, fueled by a revelation of past betrayal, unleashes his fury on the court.
Patrick, seeking redemption, battles back.
The tension reaches a fever pitch as Art lunges for a final shot, colliding with Patrick in a tangle of limbs as he dives over the actual net and into his arms.
This isn't just a tennis maneuver; it's a physical manifestation of their complex bond.
And it symbolizes the reuniting of their friendship.
Their embrace is open to interpretation, but my take is that it hints at a long-awaited forgiveness. Art and Patrick, despite years of estrangement, may be rediscovering a connection forged on the tennis courts of their youth.
Of course, this could be more complicated since Tashi has recently slept with Patrick, but maybe not.
Tashi adds another layer to the ending. Is her enthusiastic cheer a sign of renewed passion for the game, or is it fueled by the raw emotion displayed on the court?
Her future with Art remains uncertain. She respects him as a father but wants him to want to be a tennis player, the thing that was taken away from her.
In the final scene, they are finally communicating, not with words, but through the language of the game that brought them together.
Whether Art emerges victorious, or Patrick claims his comeback, is ultimately irrelevant. The ending of Challengers is a dance of forgiveness, a tentative step towards healing old wounds. And perhaps, that's the most satisfying victory of all.
Guadagnino told Entertainment Weekly he kept the winner ambiguous on purpose: "I needed to get this very, very visually amped up and really immersed for the audience to understand how much it meant for them not to win over the other, but to be back together, all of them."
The question of which guy Tashi chooses at the end is also on the audience's mind.
Writer of the movie Justin Kuritzkes told Indie Wire “I chose to end the movie where I ended the movie, and I chose to end it there because for me, the movie is over. For me, what’s going on with these people has resolved in some way that’s satisfying enough for me. And I always want to start a movie as late as possible and end a movie as early as possible. So for me, I got what I needed by then, and I feel like they did too.”
Challengers is a film that lingers, like the echo of a well-struck ball. It doesn't offer easy answers, preferring to explore the complexities of human connection and the weight of the past.
Whether Art or Patrick ultimately triumphed on the court is less important than the journey they took to reach that point, a journey that may forever change the dynamics of their tangled relationship with Tashi.
Is tennis the ultimate key to forgiveness? Let me know what you think in the comments.