A cheese grater, a romantic comedy and someone has to say “my, oh, my.” That could be a prompt for filmmakers in the Okanagan whose short movie could end up on the world stage.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a competition where movie crews have to make a short film, around four to seven minutes in length, this weekend. Around 10 teams have signed up and they are going to be given a prop, a genre and a line of dialogue that has to be included in their movie.

“It’s a mad sprint where they have to once they get those required elements, actually go off, write the script, then shoot it and then also edit it all within 48 hours,” said George Popi, who won the contest back in 2023, and now he’s one of the main producers.

He said it’s a great way for people of any skill level to improve, from high school beginners to industry professionals.

“It’s a really good way of fine tuning your skillsets as filmmakers and just having a fun weekend to do something creative and not overthink the script,” Popi said.

The movies will have two events, a screening at the Mary Irwin Theatre in Kelowna on June 7 and an awards ceremony at the Powerhouse Theatre in Vernon on June 5.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a global contest with competitions in more than 100 cities. The winners from each local contest, including the Okanagan, will be taking their movies abroad to the project’s festival called Filmapalooza in Curaçao.

Popi said one of the biggest challenges for filmmakers is making the project manageable.

“It’s very easy to try to have creep of scope. If you’re really polishing and not just letting the creative process flow,” he said.

The props, dialogue lines and genres that will be given to the teams are all top-secret until the event kicks off at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, May 1. Popi said teams can register up to the last minute.

Popi said the year his team won the contest they just had fun.

“We had the genre of mockumentary. And I think I was the only person working on the camera and doing the editing. The rest of my team, which was about nine other people, were all actors and they just did improv for the whole scene. And it was great. It was fun. And it’s chaotic. It was delightful,” he said.

The 48 Hour Film Project is set to be one of the best events of the year for local filmmakers in the Okanagan.

“This is like one of probably the funnest weekends for filmmaking on the indie side in the Okanagan,” Popi said.