UTS winners with the WOW factor

(From top) Delivery Day, A True Story About Love, Lola and The Original

Former UTS students scooped two major awards and a UTS student film scored a high commendation at this year's World of Women (WOW) Cinema International Film Festival.

Liz Watts produced Delivery Day, which won the $30,000 award for the Best Australian Short Film, and Melissa Lee, who produced and directed A True Story About Love, won the Zonta Emerging Filmmaker Award valued at $3,000.

The short film Lola, by UTS students Jackie Young, director, and producer Ellen Tsoi received a high commendation. Lola is about Lola Harding-Irmer, who helped to choreograph the opening ceremony of the 1936 Berlin Olympics and ran in the Sydney Olympics Torch Relay.

The Pill Box, produced and directed by UTS postgraduate student Jimena Puente-Trevino, and Whitebait produced and directed by UTS graduate Beth Phelan were screened in the Best Short Film section; and Our Brother James by UTS lecturer Jessica Douglas-Henry was also screened.

The UTS Encouragement Award sponsored jointly by Encore magazine went to Amanda Bishop, who produced, directed and acted in the short film The Big Check-Out. The award entitles Bishop to study a subject in the Media, Arts and Production program and to receive a one-year subscription to Encore magazine and the 2001 Encore directory.

The WOW festival, which celebrates the work of women film-makers, attracted entries from the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, India, New Zealand and Australia.

The WOW successes followed hot on the heels of the UTS Golden Eye Awards, which attracted a star-studded panel of judges including the director of Babe, Chris Noonan, and the sound designer and editor for Lantana and Oscar and Lucinda, UTS graduate Andrew Plain.

The Golden Eye Awards for outstanding film, video and new media productions by UTS Media Arts and Production students and graduates are acknowledged by the industry as a showcase for the work of some of the most creative media arts and production staff, students and graduates in Australia.

Josh Szeps, director of a stylish comedy drama The Original, won the drama award. The Pill Box producer/director Jimena Puente-Trevino and Maina Bidegain took the award for editing, and Brendan Woithe won the award for sound.

Zoe Finch won the award for design and international student Kim Sargenius the award for Cinematography for the film Static, which was directed by Owen Trevor. Finch's award includes an attachment with director Graham Grace Walker.

Jacqueline Mikhail, who directed the film Curve, won the Eat Carpet award sponsored by SBS Television, which will screen the film; and Janine Jones, who directed Jewel in the Garbage — a documentary about a Palestinian priest who founded the only educational institution where Jews, Arabs, Druze and Christians study and work together — received the awards for script and documentary.

Director of Unit # 52 Tony Krawitz took the award for best direction and the hotly contested People's Choice award.