The 69 Hour Film Challenge in Toronto

A timed film challenge gives a crew a fixed number of hours to write, shoot and edit a short movie. Most are tied to a genre or theme. A few invite entrants to tackle sex and mischief, and the results usually land closer to comedy than to anything arousing. Toronto hosted one of the better-known Canadian examples, the 69 Hour Film Challenge.

The name is the joke. Sixty-nine hours was the allotted time, running from a Thursday night to a Sunday evening, and the contest was open to anyone with a camera and an idea.

Origins in a living room

The contest descended from a home-grown event called the Hard Liquor and Porn Film Festival, which its organizer started among friends who made movies in an apartment. Over time the festival grew, and the organizer felt the improvised, last-minute energy slipping away. A stricter contest format arrived a few years later, built around a countdown clock. In the organizer's words, filmmakers seem to want a push. Deadlines of this sort are often said to help people finish projects that might otherwise stay in a drawer.

The secret list

The central rule was a list of ten secret items revealed at the starting hour. Every film had to work in at least three. In one early round the list included a made-up word, and one crew answered with a music video for an invented German band, using all ten items and writing an original song along the way. Teams entered from several Canadian cities and from overseas, and a small participation fee covered costs.

A public screening

Finished films were shown at a comedy club in Toronto. The programme included live music, burlesque and belly dancing, along with door prizes drawn from the adult-entertainment world and an award for the best film. The evening was streamed online, which let viewers outside the room watch as well.

Comedy over heat

Entrants were rarely professionals in adult film. The organizer described them as ordinary, somewhat shy people who liked that nothing was censored. That freedom produced shorts as much about failed romance and awkward evenings as about success in bed, with filmmakers drawing on what they knew first-hand.

Contests like this one sit where amateur cinema, stage comedy and sex-positive community culture meet. Specifics such as dates, venues and entry costs belonged to the years the event ran, so the example is best read as history.