MetFilm School hosted its third annual Smart Screen Creative Awards at the Ham Yard Hotel in London’s Soho on Monday night. It was a glittering celebration of work from degree, postgraduate and short course students studying at the School’s London (Ealing) and Berlin campuses.
The Awards were judged by well-known industry professionals including writer and director, ArmandoIanucci (The Thick of It, Veep, The Death of Stalin,) producer, Tanya Seghatchian (Harry Potter, The Crown, Cold War), Head of Programming at Channel 5, Ben Frow, writer, Ash Ditta (Swimming with Men, The Catherine Tate Show), CEO, Ukie – the UK’s trade body for games and interactive entertainment, Dr Jo Twist OBE and Head of Development at Carnival Films, Jo Strevens.
The Awards, in association with Procam and Take 2, saw around 150 students, their friends and families gather to pick up the top honours; the event saw double the amount of entries of previous years’ acrossjust six categories.
One of the most prestigious honours of the night, the Creative Excellence award, went to ArtaDinsberga and the team behind her film: ‘The Silent Generation.’
The film features octogenarians who grew up seeing the terrors of World War II and have devoted their lives to improving mankind; a generation of truly great minds.
Arta said: “Winning this award has shown me that I can achieve the things that I want to in life. It’s made me believe more in myself.
Because, I was doubting myself wondering how people would receive the film – especially because it’s in Latvian.
“My film was quite different from the others, it looks really simple… the look and feel is very different. Winning this award has given me confidence.”
Another headline award, which saw the second highest number of entries was the prestigious Diversityaward, it was presented to Juliana Matsubara and the team behind her film: ‘Southpaws.’
After being forced to write with her right hand whilst growing up in Japan, this left-handed Brazilian filmmaker goes on to interview people from across the world and explores what makes people ‘different’.
Juliana said: “This is the first award that I’ve ever won in my life, it’s such a humbling feeling and at the same time I was so proud. I have never felt like this before and it’s a strange combination.
“It wasn’t just about what I went through, it was about everybody in the end.”
Big winners on the night went to Gaby Fernandez Walean and Petra Krillic and the team behind the filmWorldwide Tribe. This film won two categories: Audience Engagement, and Impact. This was a realindustry project to help raise awareness of the organisation and its work to highlight the humanity behind world issues.
Gaby said: “This means a lot, I know that everyone says that they weren’t expecting to win. We weren’t really thinking of submitting Worldwide Tribe to any competition just because we wanted to get this done for the organisation itself. Our lecturer said, just give it a shot – see how people react to it.
“I just couldn’t imagine this happening. It means a lot, yep… it means a lot.”
The Innovation award went to Kimi Msibi and the team behind the film, The After Taste. This was a very personal story about life for women in South Africa. A short, powerful and poetic film that exposeshow the hidden effects of a patriarchal society contributes to Gender Based Violence (GBV).
Kimi said: “Winning this award is quite a validation, particularly the way we made the film and the reasons why we made the film. You kind of work and work and you’re never sure… you know you’re just doing it for the love and the passion and the story and you don’t think about it. And then when you actually get nominated and you win, you suddenly realise that whatever you do and /or say could have a bigger impact. It’s very humbling.”
The final award of the event was for Entrepreneurship. Filmmakers have to be able to raise capital and the entries to this category highlighted the many clever ways students had secured funding. This Award went to 18 year old, Raphaela Wagner and the team behind the film, ‘Once One.’
This is an historical, magical fantasy and Raphaela managed to secure funding from the Swiss government and she engaged influencers from the worlds of equestrian society and social media to drum up a huge amount of interest in her project.
