Film festival: Sheffield students win Welcome to Yorkshire Student Film Festival

Their film Victoria Street is about what makes a street and features Sheffield poet laureate Warda Yassin. It was chosen from four 90-second films from Hallam University’s media students.

Co-directors Aaron Hopper and Asma Kabadeh said: "We love the way Warda's poem reflects the nature of what makes a community and everyday life, it’s neither a celebration or a conflict. Making the poem into a visual piece was a fantastic and exciting challenge!"

Sound recordist Magda Zajkowska accepted the award on behalf of the Victoria Street crew. He said: “The project gave me a valuable insight into how productions are run within the industry, allowing us to collaborate, not only with other students, but also graduates, lecturers and industry experts, helping us to bring our projects to life.”

They will join a live screen production set for a day with Screen Yorkshire.

Sheffield Hallam University and Screen Yorkshire joined forces for the competition which received submissions covering a diverse range of topics, with the aim of promoting the virtues of Yorkshire. The four shortlisted finalists went to a public online vote.

Glyn Middleton, head of skills and industry engagement at Screen Yorkshire, said: "We're delighted at the success of this Yorkshire-themed student film competition. We're hoping the competition will return next year, with even stronger films".

Ashely Barnes, deputy head of humanities at Hallam, added: "It was a fantastic opportunity for our students, to be involved in this project. The benefit of getting students from three different creative degrees - screenwriting and film, film and media production and acting and performance - to work together not only echoes the real-world practices of the industry, but also creates excellent networking opportunities for all of them.

"The extent to which they recognised the contribution each discipline made to the final films was also brilliantly realised in the awards event when they appeared on stage together.”

Saskia Wilson, course leader and senior lecturer at Hallam, said: “Working with Welcome to Yorkshire has been such an amazing experience for our students. They have developed their confidence levels, their creative skills and also gained vital understanding of working in a professional capacity within the industry.”

Welcome to Yorkshire chair Peter Boxadded: “The standard of films entered was incredibly impressive and an amazing opportunity to showcase Yorkshire far and wide. The county’s very talented and creative students took this fantastic opportunity to show top industry specialists their production skills.”

Receiving the runner-up prize with 413 votes, Phin Frederick, director of Out of Tea, Out of Time, said: “The project gave me my first opportunity to work from a dramatic script and direct actors.

"Working with the cast and crew to infuse the 90-second short with the same comedic action that the script had was a challenge, but an enjoyable one. We’re grateful to have been given the opportunity and massively appreciate the support we received.”

To view all four finalist films from 2021 visit https://www.yorkshire.com/student-film-competition.