Welcome to Watersprite! Our second festival took place from 11-13 March 2011, and we had a whale of a time, thanks to the generosity of our speakers, the talent of the filmmakers, the support of our sponsors and everyone who attended the events, screenings and parties It's also a good time to thank our wonderful team, including our patron, Hilary Bevan Jones. You can find more details about our award winners here, and read responses to the festival here.
Watersprite is the Cambridge International Student Film Festival and is a society independent of the central University, run by students, with the assistance of our patron, Hilary Bevan Jones. We aim to establish an event that showcases and celebrates new talented filmmakers from around the world. In turn, to help our attending filmmakers in their pursuit of excellence, we host talks and workshops with dynamic, motivational speakers including many by industry world leaders. Another important aspect of the festival is the opportunity to meet not just professionals, but other student filmmakers: aside from the inspiration that attendees find in the talks, this opportunity to share creative ideas and grow address books is one of the areas we are most consistently thanked for.
The centrepiece of our weekend is the Watersprite Awards ceremony, which in 2011 was powered by YouTube. We were honoured to welcome Tom Hollander as our host for the evening, and presenters included Bill Nighy, Kevin Macdonald, Joe Walker and Brian Woods. We presented 10 awards across the evening, to filmmakers from the UK, Europe and Asia, and all winners received a personalised glass award, cash prize and Shooting People membership for a year. It was also our great pleasure to invite all nominees to reception drinks and our after party, held at the glamorous Varsity Hotel!
Our weekend takes place in the city of Cambridge. In 2011 we partnered with Emmanuel College, The Cambridge Union Society and The Varsity Hotel (), allowing us to hold the events in beautiful venues, and giving our attendees the chance to experience the best of both old and new that Cambridge has to offer.
Exciting news! Please click here to find out more about MyCam a competition we are running in conjunction...
Shooting People, the most crucial organisation for all independent filmmakers, has offered one year's...
Our friends at the fantastic Rushes Soho Shorts are now calling for submissions for their 13th celebration...
Have a look at what our friends are doing over at www.breakingground.eu. Breaking Ground is a young and...
The two venues for our festival this year have been confirmed as Emmanuel College and the Union Society....
We are very pleased to confirm that Talacre Beach has become our first sponsor. Talacre Beach owns six...
Watersprite 2011, announces its call for submissions. The festival is looking for the best in student-produced...
We can now confirm that the opening night of Watersprite 2011 will feature a debate, in the Union Society...
We are pleased to confirm that Bill Nighy, the man whose irreverent charm fills the screen in Love Actually,...
| Category | Film | Director/Crew |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 Film of the Year | El Ambidiestro (The Ambidextrous) | Antonio Palomino Rodriguez |
| Fiction Award | El Ambidiestro (The Ambidextrous) | Antonio Palomino Rodriguez |
| Documentary Award | The Switch | kannan Karthik |
| Animation Award | The Mask | Hyoung-Min Choi |
| Acting Award | Zumbo | Sean Garrett |
| Cinematography Award | Hush | Ashley Cutmore |
| Editing Award | The Break-In | Aleck Morton |
| Direction Award | Checkmate | Navarro Aydemir |
| Screenplay Award | El Ambidiestro (The Ambidextrous) | Antonio Palomino Rodriguez |
| Sound Award | Yeah Yeah Yeah | Greg Bond |
Click here to download the nomination list for 2011 Festival
Click here to download the shortlists for 2011 Festival
NEWS! All submissions that get into the Watersprite screening programme (not just award winners) will receive a year's free membership at Shooting People, worth £35!
We will have 10 awards at Watersprite 2011. All will receive an award and a prize of £100, other than the maker of the Film of the Year which will receive £250. The awards will be split into two categories:
| Genre/Format | Technical |
|---|---|
| Documentary | Sound |
| Narrative/Live Action | Cinematography |
| Animation | Editing |
| Screenplay | |
| Acting | |
| Direction |
The final prize will be our prestigious Film of the Year award. For details of last year's winner please see below.
All the submitted films were watched and subsequently judged by groups of students, filmmakers and academics in Cambridge. A shortlist was created for each category based on the highest average scores over a range of criteria, depending on which award it was being considered for.
The shortlisted films were viewed by our specially selected juries, comprising industry professionals, experienced Cambridge filmmakers and film-enthusiast students. The jurors then met to discuss films, agree on nominees and vote secretly for the winners. The debates were heated and thorough, and each film really earned its place! This was the process for nine out of our ten awards. The Film of the Year nominations comprised the winners of our three genre categories, Fiction, Animation and Documentary. The Watersprite Committee held a similar jury discussion to decide the film that had most impressed across the board.
We also held the Watersprite Script Lab competition, which culminated in the opportunity to pitch your script to BAFTA-nominee Piers Thompson, and to then take part in a workshop, in front of an audience, on that script. The winners were:
Watersprite is a fantastic initiative for any company to support. Not only are you helping to forge networks for new talent, at a time when funding for the arts is being drastically reduced, but you will gain access to thousands of students across the world and have your brand associated with an event at one of the world's top universities. If you are interested in finding out more about sponsorship opportunities in 2012 please contact us for further information. If you would prefer to speak to us directly please call Ellie on 07956 553008.
This year Watersprite is proud to continue supporting the World Film Collective, a dynamic charity working internationally to train young people in filmmaking and journalism using mobile phones. By using accessible and affordable technology WFC's workshops, currently running in Brazil, South Africa, Palestine and the UK, enable young people to participate in the digital revolution. In order to raise as much money as possible for our partner charity, Watersprite will donate 50% of the total amount raised from programme sales.
Watersprite is proud to be linked with the following organisations. Please click on their logos for further information about these organisations:
If you think your organisation and Watersprite could work together to create a new partnership, please contact us.
Submissions for Watersprite 2012 are planned to open in October this year. In the meantime, please do take a look at MyCam, the short film competition we are running in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. This is an exciting opportunity to have your work seen at our submissions launch, as the awards presentation for this competition will combine with the Watersprite 2012 submissions launch.
For an idea of what we got up to in Watersprite 2011, take a look at the PDF of our 2011 schedule. Towards the bottom of the PDF there are some pages with more detail about each individual event.
Here's what some of our guests had to say about the festival this year:
"I just wanted to let you know how incredible the past weekend was. The atmosphere around the whole event was just so positive, it was such an exciting environment to be a part of. It really was quite possibly the best weekend I've ever had, one of those perfect storms. Meeting Bill Nighy might have been the highlight of my life."
"Thank you for putting on such an amazing festival and awards ceremony! I had a fantastic time!"
"Thanks a lot for the hospitality this weekend - festival was incredibly well organised and it was a lot of fun."
"Thanks for inviting me to participate in the screenplay jury - a very enjoyable day and great to be introduced to so much new talent."
"The entrants were of a particularly high standard. Halfway through the first film I forgot that I was watching a student film and started writing a critique as thought it were a fully funded, professionally shot movie, such was the quality: this I believe is an excellent sign for the future of cinema."
