Money Back Please wins Baltic Sea Competition and Festival Grand Prix. Other winners include lauded films The Mass of Men and Mystery alongside Estonia’s own The Photo
Norwegian Film Money Back Please– a compelling story of choosing between what is right and what is easy - was one of the big winners at the 2013 Sleepwalkers Student and Short Film Festival which took place in Tallinn, Estonia during November. Based at the Baltic Film and Media school (www.bfm.ee) the event, a ‘sub-festival’ of the renowned Black Nights Film Festival (www.poff.ee), gave out its awards at the Black Nights closing ceremony with Money Back Please director Even Hafnor in attendance to collect both his accolades.
Other winners at the festival included The Mass of Men (Dir. Gabriel Gauchet, UK) the National Film and Television School film that won the Sleepwalkers Student Film Award with a prize of 1000 EUR sponsored by Levira Media. Following a man who arrives at the unemployment office a few minutes late, it’s a powerful story of desperation and bureaucracy which has also been honoured at the likes of Locarno and Tampere.
Mystery (Dir. Chema Garcia Ibarra, Spain) – an obtuse and humorously surreal affair – won the Sleepwalkers International Competition with a prize of 1000 EUR sponsored by Starman. The International and Student Competitions were presided over by Louis Savy (UK), from the London Sci-Fi Festival, Sirkka Möller (Germany), a programmer for numerous festivals including the Berlinale and Anna Hints (Estonia), the director of the 2012 Sleepwalkers National Competition winner Vaba Maa.
The Sleepwalkers National Competition, coming with a prize of 1000 EUR sponsored by Canon Overall, was won by The Photo (Dirs. Katrin Maimik & Jan Erik Nõgisto, Estonia), the story of a young woman - trapped by her demanding father - who forms a strange relationship with a young boy, while Money Back Please (Dir. Even Hafnor, Norway) won the aforementioned Baltic Sea Competition with a prize of 1000 EUR sponsored by Estonian national broadcaster ERR. The competitions for these were judged Ulla Bergström (Finland), from the DocPoint Film Festival in Helsinki, Alexei Dmitriev (Russia), a filmmaker and programmer, and Aivar Laan (Estonia) from Tallinn’s Rooftop Cinema.
Each jury was also tasked with choosing a film from each of their competitions that would go on to compete for the Sleepwalker’s Grand Prix – a prize that celebrates the films that best embody the spirit of Sleepwalkers and the art of the short film. Those films were Money Back Please and Mystery alongside the National Competition’s Mai (Dir. Maria Reinup, Estonia) – a compelling story of a incident on a bus – and the moving documentary from the Student Competition The Fourth One (Dir. Liis Leppik, Estonia). The programme of nominated films was screened multiple times at the Baltic Film and Media School and the winner of the Grand Prix was voted for by the public.
Sleepwalkers Director Peter Murdmaa said:
“The Sleepwalkers Grand Prix is all about celebrating the spirit of short film and also giving the chance for audiences to vote for their favourite films after the professionals did a brilliant job in each individual competition. With an amazing award of a specially crafted pair of ‘Sleepwalkers Glasses’ I’m really proud of celebrating short films and the fact that Money Back Please has touched so many audiences.”
Other events at the festival included a retrospective given to the Scottish Screen Academy – one of the most respected film schools in the UK – and a retro of the work of Alexei Dmtriev which consisted of 10 minutes of films and 50 minutes of chat and stand-up. The European Film Academy Short Matters! Programme also screened at the festival. There were also workshops including those dedicated to Crossmedia, running events and making films on a low budget and a Baltic Bridges Documentary workshop.
The 15th Sleepwalkers Student and Short Film Festival will take place in 2014.
Contact sleepwalkers@swff.ee for more info