Glimpse at 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.
Winners of the COINS film festival. Pix by Sameera Weerasekera
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 non-fiction. Since this was a short film festival, the submissions needed to be longer than two minutes and less twenty five minutes.
There were 17 awards to be handed out, out of which the grant was the most coveted prize. The goal of the festival is to create a short film culture in Sri Lanka, which the organizers hope, would result in producing future film makers. From a project chairperson’s perspective Chirath tells us “The Rs. 5 million package was for the winner to produce his debut feature film.”
Little did Chirath know however, that he would be walking away with that prize, after his films ‘White Light’ and “Shadow in the dark” were picked as the winner.
The festival was first put together by the students of TV and Film, back in 2011 as a part of their final year project. It ran for a second time back in 2014 and this year 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.”
The COINS Debut Grant Award
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 explained that film screenings of the festival were one of the festival’s main highlights and 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.”
As we moved on through the festival, we came to the ‘Coins world Cinema.’ This area showcased a select few short film packages from world renowned film festivals such as the Locarno film festival and the Busan Film Festival etc., which was indeed a treat to watch.
The final section was the Coin Masters, which projected feature films such as ‘Retrospective’ by veteran film maker Abbas Kiarostam and Jude Ratnam’s film ‘Demons in Paradise’ which was screened at the Cannes film festival.
Overall from a viewer’s perspective, the Coins film fest was indeed a treat to witness.
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| Colombo International Student Film Festival – Award Ceremony (Coins) 2017 Winners | |
| Segment 01 Non Fiction Category Best Sound Designer Deepak Jain Nirvana Sikkim Manipal University India. Best Editor Best Cinematographer Best Director Segment 02 Best Animation Character Design Best Animation Look Development Best CG Film Segment 03 Fiction Category Best Sound Designer Best Editor Best Cinematographer Best Director Segment 04 Audience Award Segment 05 Award Of Excellence Jude Ratnam Segment 06 The Golden COINS Award – Winner Best Picture Segment 07 |