After its premiere at the Hamilton Comedy Film Festival, Andrew Dawson's extraordinarily unique feature-length film Fingerface captured the prize for Best Screenplay at the Sydney Indie Film Festival before lining up for its VOD release via Reelhouse and other VOD outlets.

To call Fingerface unique seems almost inadequate. In addition to writing and directing Fingerface, Andrew Dawson also stars in the film, though maybe not in the way that you may expect. If you could weave together the quirkiness of a South Park or  Team America type film and the emotional honesty of the current Anomalisa, you might have at least a little bit of an idea of what to expect from Fingerface, perhaps the greatest love story ever handed to you.

Dawson covered, quite literally, every task in the making the low-budget indie including writing, director, starring, vocal work, editing, lensing, music, production design and sound.

Everything.

The entire film is played out by fingers. <I'll give you a moment to fully digest that>

Seriously.

Fingers with felt tip faces.

No, seriously.

Oh, and this isn't a short film. We're not talking about a five or ten or even a twenty-minute film. Fingerface is an 88-minute feature-length film with a complete, and actually very endearing, love story with pirates and cults and comedy and so much more. It's a film that, without a doubt, won't please everyone but for those who can truly give themselves to a truly unique cinematic effort it's hard to imagine you won't find yourself completely captivated by Dawson's bold vision and ability to pull it all off in a way that puts an awful lot of other indie filmmakers to shame.

As Giles, Dawson is simply extraordinary but he's pretty darn awesome as everyone else. The film's music, also created by Dawson, fits perfectly within the film's artistic framework and by film's end you simply can't help but have a smile on your face.

Even if you don't completely love Fingerface, and even I'll admit it has its flaws, you'll likely find yourself wanting to spend the cash to watch it just so you can support this up-and-coming filmmaker with an artistic sensibility that you simply can't teach. Dawson, who had moved to a small town in Poland to teach English and had no friends around to help with the film, serves up an absolute delight that you're not likely to forget anytime soon.

For once, I can call a film "cinematic finger food" and be completely serious. Fingerface will leave you satisfied.

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic