We were wowed by the level of entries at this year’s Business Disability Forum film festival, hosted at KPMG offices in Canary Wharf.
Entrants submitted their films to win a work placement with a film production company.
Sponsored by Barclays, the film Festival was the result of the 7 day film challenge to university students and graduates.
The challenge called on students from all over the UK to create a film that embodied the brief.
We released the official question via email on Tuesday 27 March with 7 days to create the film and submit by Tuesday 3 April 2018. The question was:
‘What does going places mean for you?’
In the end, we chose five pieces of work from students and graduates as well as topical films from Barclays and KPMG, with disability-related perspectives, seeking to challenge assumptions and attitudes and open eyes to the reality of living with a disability.
The winner was Diversity against Adversity from Manchester Film School with their film ‘Kenny Rei and the Spicy Ladies’, made by Miguel Ramos and Bettina Toth.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-a-EJSMMAY]
This humorous and thought-provoking story was about a man with ADHD and his allies in the workplace.
Runner up was Wolf Pack from the University of Wolverhampton with their film ‘Barrier’, about a deaf man who against ‘barriers’ goes on a job interview. They were last year winners Samuel Ash and William Horsefield.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wemJHP41qmQ]
Third place was Edgar Scukins from the Manchester School of Art with his film ‘Mike’, about the protagonist who has cerebral palsy.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31XJF9-a-tM]
We also awarded highly commended prizes to Luke Trower for ‘Going Forward’:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73tb4c7a70I]
as well as John Ford, Zoe Norgrove and Ritesh Vara for ‘Stick With It’:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLzTbe00JOI]
The entries were judged by leaders from the world of TV, film and disability: Oliver Kent, Head of Continuing Drama Series, BBC, Ioanna Karavela, Producer, 90 Seconds, Noeleen Cowley, Partner, Banking Operations and Customers, KPMG, Helen Cooke, Founder and CEO, MyPlus and Tara Jelley, Barclays UK Head of Technology Transformation & Accessibility Sponsor.
Prizes awarded at the film festival
Diversity against diversity, the team who created ‘Kenny Rei and the Spicy Ladies’ won a full day’s work placement/training session with video production company 90 Seconds, with personal insight into how to succeed in the media industry, as well as profile creation on their job platform. Other prizes included: work experience with film production company 1stAveMachine, An Amazon Echo (donated by Enterprise-Rent-A-Car), A Google chromecast (donated by Texthelp), A £300 Amazon voucher (donated by Lexxic) and An Xbox One S (donated by Microsoft).
Barclays also showed their film:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aH2zLNxSE8]
The film festival proved to be a great opportunity to network too as the prize winners had conversations with the various Members and Partners at Business Disability Forum, as well as the judges.
Camera prop at Business Disability Forum Film Festival 2018
A big thank you to everyone who came along and we look forward to seeing you next year!
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