Day 5 – “And the winner is…”

That the final blog post of this year's Iris Prize Festival is being written on Tuesday, rather than first thing Monday morning, should tell you everything you need to know about the last day - and, indeed, the festival as a whole. If I'd even attempted a write-up of the awards show (and the party that followed) yesterday, it's doubtful it would have been recognisable as written English, let along a blog. There was a slight change in the format of this year's awards, with us starting in our old stalwart, Screen 15 of Cineworld. There, we were treated to a live performance by Lily Beau of her lovely song Tonight, which features in the montage of the Iris 2015 shortlist. Then our delightful host Amy Lamé took to the stage, and the prizes came thick and fast. This is a blog, not a press release, so I won't reel off all the winners (you can find out more right here). Suffice to say, my favourite film, Vessels, scooped the Iris Prize itself, and my second favourite, Hole, got a special mention, so me and my crystal ball are feeling kind of smug right now. There was a lot of love in the audience for Lloyd Eyre-Morgan's film Closets, which went away with both the Youth Prize (chosen by a jury of teenagers) and Best British Short, and Pinewood Studios' Andrew Smith announced that they are upping their prize from £14,000 to £20,000 worth of post-production sound facilities. Which is amazeballs, as I believe the youngsters would say. (Yes - in 2008. Ed.) From Cineworld, we headed over to the Park Inn for the post-awards dinner, where I was able to have a brief chat with both Miss Lamé (largely about her idol Morrissey's notorious debut novel) and our sponsor, Lord Glendonbrook. Probably for the best that this happened at the beginning, rather than the end of the afternoon, when there would have been a very high chance of me bellowing "Make some noise! Lord Glendonbrook is in... tha'... house!", before attempting a high five. (You can still be sent to the Tower for that sort of thing, you know.) At dinner, the food wasn't so much eaten as vacuumed off the plate, and the wine flowed with alarming ease. I've seen photographic evidence that I made it to the Iris team's staff party at nearby bar the Kings, and that by that point I'd switched from white wine to red, but I have little memory of it. If I nibbled, groped or rugby tackled anyone in those missing hours, I can only apologise. Unless you enjoyed it, in which case I'm glad I could be of service. The countdown clock on Iris's homepage tells me there are 365 days and 25 minutes until next year's festival, which should give me just about enough time to recover from Iris 2015. Until then, I intend to bring you regular snippets of Iris-related news, as well as occasional pieces on queer cinema in general. After all, a blog's not just for Iris.