Manchester Evening News Article
January 2, 2018
AldridgeUTC@MediaCityUK, a 14-18 college specialising in creative and digital media, held its first annual Film Festival, to celebrate its students' success.
The event was held on July 1, creating a gateway for Year 12 and 13 students to meet people within the local film and screen industry and showcase some of their fantastic work.
VIPs from across the film industry, including ‘Black Widow’ VFX artist Julie Nixon attended the festival. Students had the opportunity to talk about their work and get advice from industry specialists. Screening of the films was showcased and was referred to as “truly high quality” by Luke Walters, one of the presenters, who is an award-winning director from Cinescope Pictures.
‘Woodlands’ cinematography was described as 'gorgeous' and Tom Brindley-Carter rightly won an award for this. The film also won best fictional film. Finlay Mulligan Wild won ‘Best Editing’ for this film, which has gone on to be purchased by Amazon Prime – another signifier of the quality of work being produced at the UTC.
Within the audience were some alumni students who joined the UTC in its opening year in 2015. These alumni students now work in a range of creative industries including the BBC, ITV, documentary production companies and graphic design agencies. The initial idea behind the college was that the students who went into the creative industry would be future role models for young people attending the college and ex-student Matt Tiplady, now working in social media, said that the college has 'now fulfilled its vision'.
Festival Director and Curriculum Leader for Film and TV, Lauren Entwistle, stated: “After working with young people from Salford for seven years, it makes me proud to bring a short film festival to the city which champions the work of student film-makers.”
Stand-out pieces featured were the ‘Clap Your Hands’ music video which was shot in a distinctive and extraordinary way, and the documentary ‘The Box’ which took a unique and interesting approach of being entirely interview-based about mental health.