Winner: Destroyer Of Worlds – Will Anderson

The winning film was produced by Edinburgh based animator Will Anderson, who in 2013 won the BAFTA for Best Animated Short for his graduation film, The Making of Longbird. Will’s film, Destroyer of Worlds, uses the medium of elegant shadow animation to tell the story of warfare from the earliest days of mankind to the atomic bomb.

Anderson, who premiered his latest short, Monkey Love Experiments, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Sunday, said::
“I found the recording from J. Robert Oppenheimer speaking on a television programme about the ‘Atomic Age’ to be particularly moving (see video below). This father of the atomic bomb describes the horror of the first successful detonation of the atomic bomb. When giving a 10 second film a go, I felt that this quote should be my starting point, and the challenge (as well as it being incredibly short) was to try to communicate how we seem to have been killing each other since the dawn of time. It strikes me that this is pretty heavy stuff, so that’s why I decided to make it with shadow play. It feels very simple, but it hopefully says quite a lot.

“When I make an animation, I always look to match the process with the story told, in some way… and there seemed to be clarity in trying to talk about something huge in the simplest way possible, and in hardly any time.”

Juror Beeban Kidron, director of InRealLife and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, said of Will’s film:
“To tell such a big story with such elegance is impressive. It does a lot of heavy lifting, but with amazing simplicity.”

Second place: Groundsman – Dave Young / Pod Films

Dave Young was awarded second place for his film, Groundsman which captures the friendship of two groundsmen at a rugby club. Both the third place winner, MHM Mubassir and student winner Kazi Ali Tamaddun live in Bangladesh – and unusually, both are pursuing advanced degrees alongside filmmaking. MHM Mubassir’s film Dependence was awarded third place. In it, he shows the tenderness between a young boy afraid of the dark, and his mother lighting a candle for him.

Third place: Dependence – M H M Mubassir

Student award: The Last Act – Kazi Ali Tamaddun

Stuart Cosgrove, director of creative diversity at Channel 4 and chair of the jury panel for 9.88 Films said:

“Will Anderson’s winning film blew everyone away. The storytelling skill, and lightness of touch with such a huge theme was fantastic to see. And at the other end of the spectrum, MHM Mubassir’s Dependence was almost portraiture – a study in calm, sparse, confident and simply beautiful storytelling.

“Groundsman was a wonderful example of a well-rounded and warm documentary in just a few seconds, while The Last Act was incredibly complex and meaningful. As with so many of the entries, it was amazing to think that all this was conveyed in just 10 seconds.”

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You’ve got just two and a half weeks left to enter your 10-second film into 9.88 Films, the Channel 4 and Creative Scotland ultra-short film challenge we featured last month. All you need to do to enter is create an original film of 10 seconds or under on any subject, using any form of moving image. The challenge is open to anyone living or born in a Commonwealth country.

The final entry date has now been extended until 5pm on Friday 11 April, and as ever, entrants are in with a chance of having their film screened on Channel 4, as well as at cinemas around the UK, and at events around the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Great filmmaking kit and equipment is also up for grabs.

The challenge has had more than 150 entries so far – here’s a selection of just some of them…

Channel Flipper – William Garratt

Switch. – Harry Ward

Super Binoculars – Joseph Fallon

Take Me Back – Henry Woodley

Deadline: 11 April

For more details and to enter, see the 9.88 Films website.

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Inspired by the Commonwealth record for the 100m sprint and as part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, 9.88 Films is holding an ultra-short filmmaking challenge. With a jury featuring Stuart Cosgrove, Ruth Paxton and Iain Smith OBE amongst others, the competition calls upon UK and Commonwealth filmmakers of all abilities to submit a film of ten seconds or less. All genres and forms of moving image are welcome. Winners have the chance to have their film screened on Channel 4. See some of the other available prizes here.

For inspiration, here are some of the 9.88 films made by established UK filmmakers:

Ruth Paxton – The Pythia

Bold Yin – The Time Machine

Julia McLean – Ride Em High!

Deadline: 9 April.

For more details and to enter, see the 9.88 Films website.

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