International film festival success for York student
Posted on 14 March 2014
Oscar Udbye, a third year undergraduate student in York’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television, won the Best Original Film Music Award for his short film A Man Came from the Sea.
Filmed in Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire when Oscar was in the second year of his BSc in Film and Television Production degree, it is the fictional story of a man washed up on the shores of Penville, a sleepy fishing village. Believing he is the sole survivor of a shipwreck, the villagers make him a hero. However, his fall from grace is swift when it turns out he might be lying...
Oscar wrote, directed and produced the film and worked on the award-winning music with Norwegian jazz trio Kattguldet - Marie Denise Aune Sahba, Valeria Neira Lillebjerka and Alva Sofia Press.
Oscar, 21, from Trondheim, Norway, said: “Accepting the award at the Watersprite Film Festival in Cambridge was a great honour and I am very happy that the jury could appreciate the hard work we had put into this film.
“Working with such a talented team - both in front of and behind the camera - during filming, and afterwards in the editing and musical process, was an enormous privilege.”
The Watersprite Awards recognise and reward emerging global talent. This year the 11 award categories attracted 325 submissions from 43 countries on six continents.
A Man Came from the Sea, which involved a 15-strong crew, will also be shown in Chile at the BioBio Cine film festival in April.
The award is the latest in a series of high-profile awards won by students on York’s BSc in Film and Television Production, which saw its first graduating cohort of students last year.
Senior Lecturer John Mateer, who leads the course, said: “We are very pleased for Oscar, who is a very worthy winner. This award, together with a number of previous honours presented to Oscar and his peers, shows the immense creativity and skill of our students, and further validates the strength of our unique BSc in Film and Television Production.”
One of Oscar’s previous films, Things That Happened on the 9th of March, won the Fiction category at the Royal Television Society Yorkshire Region Student Awards ceremony in 2012. The film has been screened in eight countries at film festivals and by the French broadcaster Canal+ on its Cinema channel in 42 countries.
Oscar said: “Through our time at York, we have learned how to become effective storytellers through the use of film and television. We have also been taught a wide range of practical techniques to aid us to get our vision onto the screen.
“However, what I have enjoyed and learned the most from have been the periods where we have been out in the field, working on each other's films, learning to get along and bond as a team and finding your own strengths and weaknesses through practical situations.”
A clip from A Man Came from the Sea can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/88753338
Notes to editors:
- Still images from A Man Came from the Sea are available from the University of York Press Office on 01904 322029 or pressoffice@york.ac.uk. Please credit Alex Campbell.
- BSc Film and Television Production
- For further information on the University of York’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television visit www.york.ac.uk/tftv
- More about the Watersprite Film Festival at www.watersprite.org.uk/
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