It takes a village – latest news from the Shakespeare Republic trenches and appreciation post for the web series community #Shakespeare #webseries #filmmaking

Happy December! It’s been an extraordinary year and we’d like to thank everyone for continuing to support the Republic as beautifully as you have. Knowing such support is out there for the work keeps our energy levels up and the engines firing for the next leg of the project and we are very grateful to all of you.

Today, we are in a rather reflective mood and filled to the brim with affection and appreciation for the community we are so proud to be a part of. We have so much news to share, that we’ve decided to do a series of updates this week to fill you all in on what’s been happening, and we’d like to start with Shakespeare Republic. So let’s get on with the update …

Since the wonderful win for Christopher Kirby of “Best Actor” at the Lit On Film Festival in New York in August, and the two wins at the Web Series Festival in Utah, Shakespeare Republic has since won another award, received another five nominations and also been selected for three more festivals. Amazing.

Firstly, as covered in an earlier post, the series was nominated for an astounding seven awards at the 2018 New Jersey WebFest in the USA, which we were so excited about! And then, once the screenings were completed , the Awards Gala Night arrived and brought with it two amazing accolades for the Republic …

Firstly, we discovered that we had been awarded Direct Selection into the Asia Web Awards in South Korea (which we are so thrilled about – especially with the other news that’s just come up … more on that in a minute).  We have to thank Caris Vujec (The Pepper Project), Tom Chamberlain (The Pantsless Detective) and Nancy Rizk (Full Disclosure) for representing us so amazingly at the NJ WebFest (we so wish we could have been there with you!!). The speech they gave in our absence when accepting this honour on Sally’s behalf was hilarious and touching and just so wonderful. Not to sound like a click-bait headline, but what they said at the microphone totally blew us away and made Sally blush to the roots of her hair. Thank you to all three for being such generous, lovely, brilliant creatives and people and to the NJ Webfest team for sharing these highlights from that moment

And then … this happened …

So much love to you Tom Chamberlain – still overwhelmed by the beautiful things you said about Sally and the series. So incredibly grateful to you, to NJ WebFest for awarding Shakespeare Republic with “Most Outstanding Drama Series” and huge thanks to the entire web series community for embracing us so fully and with such love and support. Special shout out to Neem Basha and his awesome team at NJ WebFest for making us feel so much a part of the festival  from our Early Selection right the way through to the Awards – and beyond – all the way over here in Melbourne from all the way over there in New Jersey! All the love to you guys … you rock!

It cannot be overstated how important this web series community is. Not just the communities we are so lucky to have around our individual projects, but also the wider web series creator community that now exists. Through this emerging (some might say now close to mainstream) medium of storytelling, we have had the pleasure of meeting and becoming friends with so many amazing artists, storytellers and human beings from around the world. This is largely due to the growing network of web fests and the extraordinary people who run them – many of whom are creators themselves. It is our privilege and our honour to stand beside all these amazingly creative humans in the trenches and support all our fellow adventurers as they explore, expand and evolve this medium. Long may we be able to play in this space and tell and celebrate our stories!

Even though the year is drawing to a close, the pace for the Republic hasn’t yet slowed down. In addition to our Direct Selection for the Asia Web Awards in South Korea, we were so thrilled to have the series Officially Selected for The Valley Film Festival in Los Angeles, which took place in November AND then to find out that Billy’s episode as “Henry V” has been officially selected for the Oregon Cinema Arts Festival in the USA, taking place in January next year, which is fantastic!

And then, on Saturday, December 8th, the nominations were announced via live stream for the Asia Web Awards. There were over 100 series from around the world officially selected for the Awards and we didn’t envy the judges’ task in selecting the nominees from such a diverse, fascinating list of works! So we were absolutely blown away when we heard that Shakespeare Republic had been nominated an amazing five times for the Awards!!

We are still reeling from this news and doing a happy dance around the office! Here is the wonderful list of nominations the Republic is so thrilled to have received:

Best Music (Jordan Ross)
Best Director (Sally McLean)
Best Lead Actress (Sally McLean)
Best Drama Series
Best Web Series (All Genres)

AMAZING! Huge thanks to the entire Asia Web Awards team for this wonderful clutch of nominations! This is such a fabulous way for the team to see out 2018 and we are so grateful for the love shown for the work. Congratulations to all our fellow nominees – all fabulous creators and many also friends. Special shout out to Tom at The Pantsless Detective, Neem at Neem’s Themes, Wayne at After Nightfall, Ned at The Hunted: Encore, Dan and Maddy at Sexy Herpes, Steve and Leanne at This is Desmondo Ray!, the awesome guys at Goons Inc, Nina and Belinda at HActresses, Laura at Scratch This and Soula Marie at Eating With Soula – all of whom we have the pleasure of either knowing from other realms of the entertainment biz or directly through the web series world.  To see the full list of nominees, go here: https://filmnewsenglish.blogspot.com/2018/12/asia-web-awards-2018-nominations.html

Shakespeare Republic: #LoveTheBard (Season Two) was officially launched to the public two years ago yesterday. Since then, this second season has been officially selected for 51 international film festivals and webfests, nominated 65 times and received 15 awards. Astounding, considering it was made on a shoestring budget with no studio, network or screen funding body support. So we’d like to say a huge thank you to all our donors, sponsors and supporters for helping us make this happen – we are so grateful for our community and value each and every one of you! We are additionally so overwhelmed by this international recognition and send a heartfelt thank you to all the festival Directors, teams and juries for showing such amazing appreciation for the work, as well as all those creators who so generously represented us on the circuit because sadly, we couldn’t get to most of the festivals ourselves. We are feeling so blessed and so grateful for all the love.

There is more to share, so join us in a couple of days for all the latest with Speaking Daggers and O, Mistress Mine, including more award news, some festival happy snaps and more.

‘Till next we speak … see you anon …

Sally & Billy
Executive Producers
Shakespeare Republic