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DepicT! 2012 Winners announced at Watershed

Following a fantastic buzz at the sold out DepicT! Showcase filmmakers, distinguished guests and jury members gathered on the evening of Sat 22 Sept for the grand finale of the 18th Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival, the UK’s leading short film festival. Aardman Animations’ David Sproxton, DepicT! Jury member and long-standing supporter of the competition introduced the DepicT! Awards to a full house.

The winning film, Fat Cat

This year’s DepicT! jury session brought together seasoned industry figures such as Producer Chris Auty, now Head of Producing at NFTS, David Sproxton from Aardman Animations and Karen Alexander from the Royal College of Art. After a lively and lengthy discussion at Encounters, the jury did eventually arrive at a consensus despite “no single film standing head and shoulders above the others.”

That said, what the fat cat wants the fat cat gets… Mole Hill walked away with the main DepicT! Award and the cash prize of £1,500 for The Fat Cat. David Sproxton described his film as ‘naïve in its execution yet sophisticated in its message.’

Mole Hill said:

“I’m absolutely delighted that ‘The Fat Cat’ was so well received at DepicT! – the competition was incredibly strong and varied in both style and content.  There’s something about the 90 second format – longer than a commercial, but shorter than a short – that seems to bring out a really high level of invention and experimentation in all the film-makers.”

Will Massa, Film Advisor at the British Council went on to present the British Special Mention to Anna Ginsburg for her animated film Living With Depression. Her short was praised for ‘representing the unrepresentable, quite a feat in such a short space of time.’

She has won a great package of career development opportunities from BAFTA, the National Film and Television School, The British Council and Shooting People. You’ll be able to follow her progress on depict.org

Anna Ginsburg says:

“I feel the programming at Encounters is so strong that any Award from this festival means a lot. DepicT! is a great format in which the time constraint is in many ways liberating.”

This year’s Shooting People DepicT! Audience Award went to Scott Coello for the infectiously upbeat Hey!. The Award was presented by Sarah Chorley, whose international networking organization Shooting People has secured Scott a lifetime membership along with a selection of DVDs and other goodies.

Scott Coello says:

“It’s mind blowing that the audience, both online and offline, connected with Hey! and enjoyed it enough to vote, especially considering the skitty-nonsense-whimsy-plotless-fun nature of the animation. It’s reassuring to know that I’m doing something right and encouraging to continue, develop and improve for future short films.”

Jury member and BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Karni Arieli from Karni+Saul (Flytopia) presented Dutch filmmaker Evelien Lohbeck with the inaugural DepicT! Random Acts Special Mention award for her film Big Signal: “Channel 4’s Random Acts is about bringing the most brilliant creative short bursts from all over the world to a mainstream UK TV audience. We selected a short, which we felt would offer late night viewers across the UK something memorable. The jury was struck by the simplicity and symmetry of the piece from dots to nature and back again.”

A huge thank you to the sponsors and supporters of DepicT! that enable us to run the competition, and also to all 600 filmmakers who submitted their 90 second films without which we wouldn’t have a competition!

Visit the Encounters site to view a full list of Awards.

Want the Inside story on Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival this year? Nine talented young journalists covered this year’s festival via a daily blog as part of a New Film Journalism Workshop.

Posted on 25 Sep 2012 at 2:53 pm.

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