Documentary Shot With An iPhone App Wins Oscar

The film “Searching for Sugar Man” which  rose to fame after winning Best Documentary category at the 2013 BAFTA awards. To add to its accolades are the Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award for best international documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, amongst several others. And the latest is that it went on to win the Best Documentary in the  Oscars held today(25th Feb).

At the Oscars, “Searching for Sugar Man” received severe competition from the likes of ‘5 Broken Cameras’, ‘The Gatekeepers’, ‘How to Survive a Plague’ and ‘The Invisible War’. But in the end it was declared victorious just a couple of hours back.

Malik Bendjelloul’s documentary tracks the journey of two South African fans that set out to find their disappeared musical hero Rodriguez, Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman. Segerman the rock n’ roller had achieved too much fame in South Africa back in the 70’s after failing to impress the Americans. The documentary portrays the journey of his two fans in the hope to bring him back to fame.

While the documentary has received several praises for its concept and script, not many are aware that towards the last couple of scenes it had run out of funds. Malik Bendjelloul then came up with a perfect solution to the problem. His iPhone and a $1.99 app- 8mm Vintage camera. The latter scenes of the documentary  were shot using this 8mm Vintage app.

And the app was pure brilliance because no one could tell the difference between the scenes shot with iPhone and the remaining scenes.

It’s a dream that Mr. Hongyu Chi, President of Nexvio, the company behind 8mm Vintage Camera never could have imagined.

“It’s like the wildest dream come true,” Chi said. He also adds that the company has seen a couple of musicians using the app for their low budget music videos, but Searching for Sugar Man is the first feature film he knows of that’s used the app.“Watching the film is a soul-searching journey for me,” he says.

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