Queen Mary student Eleanor Jayne Krawczyk has won Best Student Film at the Soho London Independent Film Festival for her film My Side of the Mountain, a documentary she made as part of her MA Film Studies.
The Soho London Independent Film Festival took place virtually from 19-23 November. The festival is the creation of a diverse team of film practitioners wanting to create a platform for emerging filmmakers.
Athena Mandis, Convenor in MA Documentary Practice said: "Eleanor had never made a film before. On the module she found her voice and saw she had something worth sharing. She has grown in confidence since then. It’s wonderful to see students coming into their own through their work."
In addition to Eleanor’s success, Amy Sargeant, who graduated from Queen Mary in 2016, won Best Documentary for her film Canaries. Queen Mary students Laila El Azhary and Lara Ibrahim Mubayadeen, who are studying on the MA in Documentary Practice programme, were in the competition with their films. The MA has supported the development of new voices in documentary and students from this programme also have had success with their work at other festivals.
Dr Lucy Bolton, Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary said: "This is an amazing achievement for Queen Mary’s film students in this exciting new festival. Film production really is going from strength to strength, with alumni such as Stella Corradi, Desiree Akhavan and Matt Kay forging internationally excellent, award-winning reputations."
Based in Soho in London, the new festival explores the future of purposeful film production and celebrates UK and global filmmaking talent and creativity.
The vision of the festival is to bring communities and filmmakers together to create films that have a social impact and facilitate change and aim to empower people who have had their voices taken. By working with filmmakers and communities, the team hopes to give people the opportunity to express and articulate their fears, hopes and aspirations.
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