The sixth annual Show Me Shorts Film Festival is now open and kicked off in Auckland last night with a glamorous awards evening at The Capitol, where the winners of eight prizes for excellence in short film making were announced.
Jack Woon took home the coveted Kodak Best Film Award for his dreamy drama about awkward teenage love, The Great Barrier. Woon also took out the SDGNZ Best Director prize. A pre-recorded acceptance speech was sent up from Dunedin
where he is currently working on a new project.
Australian film The Kiss by Ashlee Page took home both the Panavision Best Cinematographer prize and the StarNow Best Actor award for an outstanding performance by Nicole Gulasekharam.
Tammy Davis collected the Script to Screen Best Screen Play for his crowd pleasing directorial debut film about two thieves, Ebony Society, which he also wrote.
Judges Catherine Fitzgerald, Paul Grinder, and James Brookman paid tribute to the bright futures of all the filmmakers. “What a privilege to watch these films,” said film producer Catherine Fitzgerald, whose Samoan language feature film The Orator is currently in cinemas. “The diversity of stories, storytelling and talent made selecting nominees and winners a real challenge, but equally fills me with excitement in anticipation for what the future will bring from these filmmakers.”
With a total prize pool valued at over $10,000, the winners received a range of
tools that will help them continue to make more films, such as film stock from
Kodak, camera gear hire from Panavision, writing workshops and subscriptions to
industry publications.
- Kodak Best Film – Jack Woon for ‘The Great Barrier’
- Special Jury Prize – Peter Neville for the musical score in ‘Cockroach’
- SDGNZ Best Director – Jack Woon for ‘The Great Barrier’
- Script to Screen Best Screen Play – Tammy Davis for ‘Ebony Society’
- SDGNZ Best Editor – Lewis Albrow for ‘3 Hours’
- Best Student Film – Jonah Musitano for ‘Maurice’
- Panavision Best Cinematographer – Nick Matthews for ‘The Kiss’
- StarNow Best Actor – Nicole Gulasekharam for ‘The Kiss’
A big thanks to this year’s judges; to our amazing Partners for making the festival possible; and of course to all of the film makers and lovers who were able to make it to our Auckland Opening Night. We hope you are able to enjoy some more of this year’s festival at one of our 12 locations throughout New Zealand this year. See our Programme for a cinema near you or Media Glory for reviews, interviews, and discussion about this year’s festival. Show Me Shorts is here for a good time, not a long time!
