SINGAPORE: A drama about a man who travels to Korea to seek out the parents of a girl whom his son killed in a hit-and-run accident won top honours on Saturday (Jul 23) at the second National Youth Film Awards (NYFA).
The film, titled Han, won the DBS Best Picture award for Shammini Gunasegaran and the team, who all hail from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The film also took home the Best Direction award for Jonathan Choo, who is doing a BFA in Digital Filmmaking at NTU.
It is a personal feather in the cap for Choo, who was a nominee from last year’s NYFA but went home empty handed. Choo wrote Han with his father, Mediacorp actor Zhu Hou Ren, in mind, and has his father in the starring role.
The NYFA is a film-making competition organised by *SCAPE and local film project consultancy management and training company Sinema Media, which aims to establish a benchmark in national excellence and talent identification between the film industry and Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) that offer film-related and animation courses. This year, the NYFA is presented by DBS Bank Singapore, marking the official launch of the local bank’s collaboration with *SCAPE to engage, celebrate, and support youth in diverse fields, including film.
The annual ceremony was officiated by Guest-of-Honour Grace Fu, who is the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth.
"Film can be a powerful medium to inspire, to raise awareness and to activate change," said Ms Fu. "Through the National Youth Film Awards, we want to give more young Singaporeans a leg up in their filmmaking aspirations. We will also give them the support to grow, collaborate and make better films, so that more stories from Singapore can be shared with the rest of the world.”
RECORD NUMBER OF SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED
A record total of 260 submissions was received this year, with winners determined by a 15-member judging panel of industry heavyweights which included film-maker Jack Neo and mm2 Entertainment chief content officer Ng Say Yong.
NTU, which had the most nominations this year, secured the most wins as it bagged the Best Overall School Award for the second consecutive year. Its students took home 13 awards including Best Visual Effects, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Direction and the DBS Best Picture award. The school saw 55 nominees from its Bachelor of Communication Studies, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Digital Filmmaking, and BFA in Digital Animation courses
Seven new award categories were introduced this year to highlight NYFA’s emphasis on technical filmmaking crafts. They include awards for Best Colour Grading, won by Lee Kian Ping (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts) for his film No Regret; Best Editing in Documentary Film, won by Yonas Ngaturi (Ngee Ann Polytechnic) for the documentary, Part and Parcel; and Bert Lighting House Best Lighting, awarded to Zachary Ian Tessensohn (Republic Polytechnic) for the drama DISPATCH.
"The introduction of the new award categories not only recognises the various technical components of the production process, but also makes the competition robust in identifying talent," said judging panellist Freddie Yeo, Chief Operation Officer, Infinite Frameworks Pte Ltd and Singapore Film Commission Advisory Committee Member. "I am also comforted to know that the new awards for animation has placed an emphasis on the two components that are complementary and key in piecing together a narrative that speaks to or moves audiences.”
All the winners took home trophies, cash prizes of up to S$2,000 per award and guaranteed mentorship opportunities with industry stakeholders.