Selection of the 5 young ambassadors
Through altcineAction!, the online short film festival for young Balkan filmmakers, any young European cinéphile, student, young professional, and amateur filmmaker has the opportunity to become a film critic and write film reviews during the one-month online screenings. From 10th of December until 15th of January, the young audience had the chance watch short films available on altcineAction!, write their reviews and upload them on the website. An international committee composed of film academics (Marian Tutui, Ana Grgic, Gergana Doncheva, Lydia Papadimitriou) selected five winners, based on the quality of the film critiques, to follow the project 5C’s four events in different countries and become “young ambassadors” of independent European cinema.
The 5 winners of the first year’s edition of The 5C Project are Mariana Hristova from Bulgaria, Galina Maksimovic from Serbia, Ozge Ozduzen from Turkey, Andrei Sendrea from Romania and Rhiannon Wain from the UK.
The jury decided to award these five young critics according to the following rationale:
“The quality of critical writing this year has significantly improved – and we want to thank all the participants for their time and interest in new short films from the Balkans. Inevitably there were some very good contributions that we were unable to reward, and we hope to be able to do so in the future.”
“‘Considering both the quality and the quantity of film critiques this year, the jury’s task was even more challenging, and the competition much tougher than the previous years. We sought reviews that were original and insightful; that brought to the surface aspects of the films that other viewers may not have noticed; that expressed the reviewer’s opinion in a justifiable way; that were written in a way that could attract the reader and were also clearly communicated. We were impressed by the number of reviews written by some critics, but overall, quality was more important than quantity. Indeed, our primary criterion for the selection was the quality of the writing. We chose the five competitors, who were able to distinguish themselves through patience, their capacity for synthesis in writing, critical vision and a good grasp of the English language.
We hope that the prize will help these five young and developing writers in their possible future career as film critics, by enabling them to refine their writing skills and to create connections in the cinema industry and the film festival network in the region and beyond. We wish them luck as they embark on this cinematic caravan through one of the most exciting and lesser known European cinemas – that of the Balkans!”