PRESS RELEASE
FILMINUTE 2006 WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Public and Jury Votes for World’s Best One-Minute Films Revealed
16th October 2006
Filminute®, the international one-minute film festival, has announced the winners of its People’s Choice and Jury awards for 2006.
The jury award for Best Filminute 2006 was given to UK/Romanian director Anton Groves’ Line. With a universal narrative that is both allegorical and realistic at the same time, Line was noted by the jury for its unique sound design and sharp editing. The film artfully portrays a couple whose car sits in the path of an oncoming train in the seconds before impact. Line also generated the highest public rating with a score of 4.4 out of 5 stars. The film was described by jury member Raul Galvez of the Toronto International Latin Film Festival as “sharply edited and economically told, [with] all the ingredients, the tension, and the feeling of a good piece of dramatic work.”
UK Filmmaker and graphic designer Wayne Campbell has taken home the People’s Choice Award for It Could Be, his compelling and poetic one-minute documentary. The film takes on the issue of knife violence and is delivered as a spoken word plea interspersed with dramatisation of a knife-related crime. It Could Be is dedicated to Kiyan Prince, a 15-year-old London boy who was stabbed and died in May 2006 while breaking up a fight near his school.
Five films were also awarded commendations from the jury, noted for their relevant subject matter, narrative quirks, qualities of art and style, and ability to provoke extreme reactions from the audience. These films, which all generated vigorous debate, included The Human Coral (Michelle Coomber, UK), Charlie (Rob Hickling, Canada), Fortification (Elena Wen, USA), The Future Box (Morgan Christie, Australia), and The Bush Ghost (Seth Scriver, Canada).
The winning films were selected from a shortlist of 27 outstanding and diverse entries from around the world. All films were subject to both a public vote and a review by a respected international jury across the film, arts, literature, advertising and production industries.
In its first year, the Filminute website generated over half a million page views from audiences worldwide. The festival’s goal is to challenge filmmakers to create one-minute films that resonate beyond that one minute - a story with character and impact with the potential to evolve into a series of one-minute films, a broadband or broadcast series, or even into a feature film.
Jury member Ekow Eshun, artistic director of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, says that Filminute 2006 “demonstrated a high level of polish and a strong and exciting progression in user-generated content. Filminute has raised the bar in its first year and I am very interested to see how high the bar can go.”
“I’m very pleased that my instinct to explore a moment of extreme tension and finish it with an open ending paid off,” says Anton Groves, winner of the jury’s Best Filminute 2006. “I have to thank my crew and all those who visited the Filminute site. Hopefully this award and recognition by the jury and the public will enable me to make more films, one-minute and otherwise.”
“The quality of the competition was amazing,” says People’s Choice award winner Wayne Campbell. “I wanted to make a film that would challenge and hopefully make a difference. I feel like I have a public duty to try and change things. I wanted to make something with a meaning and a purpose... [The People’s Choice Award] is such an accolade and I feel it’s a sign for me to carry on making films.”
