Our collaboration with MPB, the UK’s leading camera reseller, has explored the deep relationships that filmmakers form with their equipment. MPB: The Next Shot set out to celebrate how cameras move beyond their function, becoming catalysts for ideas and unlocking new ways of seeing and storytelling. As we bring the series to a close, we are sharing a highlights video, bringing together moments from all four films and celebrating the joy of passing on kit, knowing it will shape a new story in someone else’s hands.
Across the series, one theme emerged again and again: our creative identities are tied to the kit we use. Cameras age with us. They absorb our experiences – the knocks, the breakthroughs, the late nights – and in doing so become familiar presences, curious and responsive. Steady, sometimes unpredictable, always attentive, they accompany us in looking and shape what we notice and how we see.
For some of our filmmakers, reconnecting with an old camera revealed how much they themselves had changed. Others found freedom in letting go of old kit and embracing tools that better suited their shifting styles and circumstances. Many reflected on the joy of passing equipment on to emerging creatives, something that closes a chapter but opens a new one in different hands. Across all four stories ran a shared understanding that gear evolves as we do; that what once defined us eventually needs to be released.
What emerged from The Next Shot is a portrait of filmmaking as an ongoing journey: cameras that help us begin, projects that shape us, and tools that continue their journeys long after we’ve outgrown them. In celebrating the circulation of gear – its ability to carry different visions across time, places and people – the series highlights how storytelling is always collaborative, even between artist and object.
Together, four filmmakers – Andi, Hilary, Xiona and Theo – shared their stories of the cameras that shaped their careers and what it meant to pass those on. Each one is a powerful testament to creativity and They asked audiences to reflect on their own kit, asking: what has it witnessed? How has it helped define your practice? And what stories might it go on to tell in the hands of someone new?
Find our more about Aesthetica Film Festival and MPB.
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