A look back at the winners of the COINS film festival

The third edition of the Colombo International Student Film Festival (COINS Film Festival) concluded recently  at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute and highlighted the exceptional talent, of both local and international students of cinematography.

By Joshua Surendraraj

Amidst the bustle of the festival, we spoke to Chirath De Silva, who aside from being the project chairperson was also a contestant.  This year the festival saw the inclusion of a new category, which was animation. The remaining two categories were fiction and nonfiction. Since this was a short film festival, the submissions needed to be longer than two minutes and less twenty five minutes.

The festival was first put together by the students of TV and Film, back in 2011 as a part of their final year projects. It ran for a second time back in 2014 and this was the third edition of the festival. 

“Our main goal was to create an international platform for the students and that’s the whole purpose of organizing this event.”  Chirath went on to explain that in comparison with the previous festivals, where most of the submissions were from the Asian region, this year included films from European countries such as Germany, France and even Poland.

Mr Dhanushka Gunathilake, the Artistic Director of the festival spoke to us next. He explained the screenings of the festival, which was one of its main highlights, fell into three categories. Namely, the competition, the Coins World Cinema and the Coins Masters.

Mr. Gunathilake tells us that nearly 280 submissions were received for the competition. Out of this 56 were selected and screened at the SLF auditorium. The task of deciding the winner of the grant fell on the final jury, which looked at not just the film alone but also the process of the film maker, the film development and the output. “Our task was to decide whether this student can project for a feature film.”

The final section was the Coin Masters, which projected feature films such as ‘Retrospective’ by veteran film maker Abbas Kiarostam and even Jude Ratnam’s film ‘Demons in Paradise’ which was one of the very first Sri Lankan documentaries to be shown at the Cannes film festival.

Colombo International Student Film Festival - Award Ceremony

(Coins) 2017

September 09^th, 2017 At Sri Lanka Foundation, Digital Film Academy

Winners

Segment  01

Non Fiction Category

Best Sound Designer

Deepak Jain

Nirvana

Sikkim Manipal University

Best Editor

Frank Carsten Walter                                                  The World We Live In,         

Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg Gmbh Germany

Best Cinematographer

Sandaruwan Abeysinghe                                             Awasan Sarasuma,

Sri Lanka Foundation, Digital Film Academy,

Sri Lanka.

Best Director

Hanna Fischer, Sofiia Melnyk& Nina Prange              The World We Live In,

Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg Gmbh  Germany

Segment  02

Animation Category

Best Cg Acting

Gp-To

Animated By  Edwin Leeds, Jonathan Valette

Director(S ) By  MaximeGental, ZoéPelegrin-Bomel, Edwin Leeds, PulkitaMathur, Jonathan Valette& Catherine LardéSupinfocomRubika

France.

Best Animation Character Design

Gp-To

Director(S )  By MaximeGental, ZoéPelegrin-Bomel, Edwin Leeds, PulkitaMathur, Jonathan Valette, Catherine LardéSupinfocomRubika

France.

Best Animation Look Development

Overrun

Director(S )  By Pierre Ropars, Antonin Derory, Diane Thirault, JérémieCottard, MatthieuDruaud, AdrienZumbihlSupinfocomRubika

France.

Best CG Film

Overrun                                              Directed (S) By Pierre Ropars, Antonin Derory, Diane Thirault, JérémieCottard, MatthieuDruaud&AdrienZumbihl

SupinfocomRubika

France.

Segment  03

Fiction Category

Best Sound Designer

GihanMadhushankaPerera                             Dispersion Of White Light

Sri Lanka Foundation, Digital Film Academy,

Sri Lanka.

Best Editor

NadunTharakaPadmasiri                                 1.75,

Sri Lanka Foundation, Digital Film Academy,

Sri Lanka.

Best Cinematographer

YoshithaDilpasandaPerera                             Dispersion Of White Light

Sri Lanka Foundation, Digital Film Academy

Sri Lanka.

Best Director

Clemens Roth                                                  The Fantastic Love Of Bee Boy And Flower GirlFilmakademie Baden-Württemberg Gmbh  Germany

Segment  04

Audience Award

DananjayaBandara                                                     Song of the Innocent

                                                                                    University of Visual and Performing Arts 

                                                                                    Sri Lanka.

Segment  05

Award Of Excellence

Jude Ratnam

COINS Tribute  Award

Ashley Ratnavibhushana

Mudalige Don Mahindapala

Segment  06

The Golden COINS Award – Winner

Best Picture

Overrun                                                          SupinfocomRubika,

France

DirectedBy                                                     Pierre Ropars, Antonin Derory, Diane Thirault, JérémieCottard, MatthieuDruaud&AdrienZumbihl

Animated By                                                  JérémieCottard, Antonin Derory, Diane Thirault, AdrienZumbihl

Edited By                                                        Antonin Derory& Pierre Ropars

Sound Designer                                             Kevin Bardin

Segment  07

COINS Debut Grant Award  

Taking in to the consideration of pre-production, Script development, production quality and projection of the idea to the mass,  the COINS Debut Grant is Awarding to the director of the short films ‘Shadow in the Dark’ and ‘White Light’ Chirath De Silva