THE winners of the first Winchester Rotary Young Film Maker Awards were celebrated at The Stripe at Winchester University.

The local heat of a national competition set youngsters the task of producing a short film of less than five minutes on the theme of Through My Eyes.

Nine films were shown to an audience made up of invited guests, Rotarians and friends and families of the competitors. The films were assessed by a panel of judges led by Dr Mark DeValk, senior lecturer in film production at the university.

Deputy Mayor Patrick Cunningham, presented certificates and the President of Winchester Rotary, Mike Billington, presented the prizes, a £200 voucher for London Camera Exchange.

The winner of the 7-10 category was Leo Weekes, eight, of St Peter’s RC Primary School who produced a stop motion film about places in Winchester. The 11-13 category was won by Joe Wilkinson, Kings’ School. Joe produced a very moving film called Living With Dementia. The winner of the oldest category (14-17) was Eliza Williams of Barton Peveril College. Her film, Through My Eyes, was an observation on the state of society in the form of a music video.

The judges were very impressed with the production values of this film.

Organiser and compere of the evening, Winchester Rotarian Steve Feeney commented that the standard was very high and he didn’t envy the judges’ job of having to choose the winning films. “whilst I totally agree with the judges’ decision, on another day several of the other films could have one”.

The films can be viewed at this link: https://www.winchester-rotary.org/index.php/our-activities/youth/young-film-maker-2019-awards.