The rising stars of British Cinema
UK’s STUDENT FILMS
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NOTE
PATRONS receive exclusive privileges from VVIP tickets for the gala awards ceremony of the 2023 Big Syn International Film Festival (10th Nov 2023, Curzon Mayfair), naming awards to dedicated webpages and many more.
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Chandni Brown
Exploring themes of migration, gender and arranged marriage, this short ethnographic documentary follows the life of Hina, a 60 year old twice-migrant living in the UK, as she begins to rebuild her life post-divorce. By shedding light on the gender roles and expectations of women that are still prevalent around the world, shared across many countries and cultures, the film highlights some of the internal struggles that over half the global population still face in their day-to-day realities. What does it mean to be a woman? What aspirations and expectations can she hold for herself? Who gets a say in defining her future?
Through a quiet contemplation on the South Asian diasporan experience, Sahan Shakti explores the silent strength of women in negotiating their own personhood and exercising individual agency.
In developing these ideas, the filmmaker delves into her own family experiences and intergenerational relationships, working with her mother and grandmother, to highlight how we might break these cycles and better understand how we have been shaped by the women who came before us.
Yaya Wang
Into the next tide is an animated dancing film, reconstituting in fragments feelings as colors into the experience of grief. Into the next tide is an offering, a gathering of past selves and a deep desire to be present. This short-film animated with a straight ahead, improvisation-based way, is a way for the filmmaker, Yaya, to reach a level of set-free, an ode to enjoying the process of making. Sound design and music, composed by Mer Sounds, were recorded along with the seashells that were used in the visuals of the film, and they created mesmerizing soundscapes of both the sea of the past and the present. The film celebrates the unknown, connection, togetherness, identity, and the soulfulness of the vast ocean that embody all of our grieves.
Boyan Borchakov
In the film, Mike discovers the drawings to a mysterious device that is supposed to ‘capture’ all the elements and ‘reproduce’ any climate condition on Earth. When he find that such outlandish creation could never work, Mike turns his failure into an opportunity to raise awareness about climate change by presenting it as an art installation.
The device from the drawings symbolises the wishful thinking that there’s a simple quick fix to the healing of our climate. The real problem is much more complex and requires everyone’s involvement, attacking the issue from all angles.
The message of the film is also that one individual cannot change the course of catastrophic events alone. Sustainable future is easily achieved when we act together.