Screen Academy Wales students win big at Ffresh Awards!

The 8th annual Ffresh Awards Ceremony at Aberystwyth Art Centre on Friday [12th February] proved once again that you don’t need a four-course dinner, red carpet and epic speeches to put on a touching awards show. As ever, the hour-long ceremony put the spotlight exactly where it should be – on the students’ talent.

Hosted by popular Welsh TV presenter and DJ Huw Evans, a total of 13 awards were presented in categories including Animation, Fiction and Music Media. Screen Academy Wales students from Newport University, University of Glamorgan, and Swansea Metropolitan University swept the board, winning a whopping seven awards between them.

Congratulations to the following stars, all of whom are studying courses accredited by Screen Academy Wales:

Animation
Sky-Caper
Todd Setter & Dean Wright
University of Glamorgan

Fiction Postgraduate
Birthday
Nicolas Booth & Cyrus Mirza Shara
IFSW, University of Wales, Newport

Fiction Undergraduate
Smoke
Rob Howells
Aberystwyth University

Games & Interactive Media
AniWall
Mateusz Cyrankiewicz
Swansea Metropolitan University

Music Media and Best of Festival!
Moments
Luc Bartlett
IFSW, University of Wales, Newport

Short Shorts
Aaron
Edward Andrews
University of Glamorgan

Screen Academy Wales was delighted to sponsor the Best International Film award for the first time, and plans are already underway to invite the winning filmmaker,
Magnus van Horn (Polish National Film, Television & Theatre School, Lodz) to the UK for a film screening event. His film Echo was chosen by the category judge, our very own Hannah Raybould.

“This category was a nightmare to judge – 20 films, ranging from experimental, to animation to fiction and all brilliant in their own way – which was to be expected as they’d been put forward by the international student festivals in which they had competed and won!

Having narrowed down to four: Yellow Belly End (NFTS), Max (York University, Toronto) and the frankly crackers See how they run (Sydney Film School) the final decision was made by reflecting on which film had the longest-lasting impact on me and, due to the excellence in direction and beautiful cinematography, as well as unbelievable acting, was the winning film from Magnus.”

Discussions are underway with Ffresh to make some of the films from this category available in the SSAW libraries shortly...watch this space.

For the full list of winners, visit www.ffresh.com