Filmmakers call for hot submissions to chick flick

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But whichever way it goes, producers of an all-women directed interactive mobile phone film say it will be a "cinematic symphony of women's voices from around the world".

The project - entitled "Overheated Symphony - is part of the Birds Eye View film festival taking place in London next month which showcases the work of female film-makers.

Women across the world are being asked to make a short film - a "quick flick" - between 40 seconds and four minutes long on a mobile phone and then send it via the internet to a London-based film director who will pull them all together.

Apart from the overall theme "Overheated", there is no restriction on content or subject matter.

"If it's hot, we'd like to see it," the project's Web site declares: "Ladies, wherever you are, whoever you are, we want you to join in."

According to Sarah Turner, the film director whose task it will be to create a final edit from the mobile phone contributions, the inspiration for "Overheated Symphony" was the 1927 film by German filmmaker Walter Ruttmann called "Berlin - Symphony of a Great City", which used a montage of still pictures from many sources to document city life.

Like that work, Overheated Symphony will be "very abstract", says Turner. It will give those who contribute the chance to engage in a "dialogue of ideas" with women across the world.

"Because they are films made by women, women's themes and issues are bound to be an integral part of the finished piece," she told Reuters.

"I expect some of them to be quite intense, because this is quite an intense thing to respond to. We all have overheated moments, when we are angry about something, or upset, or when we are sexually hot. We might even end up having some menopause films, you never know."

Turner is gathering the mobile films ahead of the March 2 deadline and will then produce a live edit of the symphony to be aired on March 9 at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Rachel Millward, director of the Birds Eye View festival, which is now in its third year, says the film is as much about new technology as it is about women and heat.

"The way film and media are going is very much towards interactivity and multi-platform projects," she said. "We wanted to develop a project along those lines, and also one that had a kind of gamey feel to it - the sense that everyone can join in and have a play."

"Making a film from all these female voices around the world is quite a beautiful thing, but also it's about shooting down the idea that women are not up to date with technology."

Contributors are being asked on www.birds-eye-view.co.uk to upload their cinematic efforts onto the festival's own youtube channel to be edited.

And while Millward admits the end result is as yet unknown, she is confident it will be far more than the sum of its parts.

"The great thing about this film is that you can't predict what it will be," she says. "It could be about climate change, or it could be about passion. I imagine it will be all of those things and more."

(Editing by Paul Casciato)