Three students from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) of Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) won the Dracula Digital 2023 Competition in the 11th Dracula Film Festival held from October 25-29 in Brasov, Romania. The students are Azhar Khir, Aqil Kamarudin, and Shukri Sufri.
This is the second time FASS Design and Creative Industries (DCI) students grabbed the top prize, winning EUR500 this year, from the international smartphone filmmaking competition.
The award-winning short film titled Séance tells a story of a 20-year-old man’s attempts to communicate with his deceased father.
Jury President of Dracula Digital 2023 Competition Eugen Neagu said, Séance stands out clearly compared to other short films with its use of cinematic elements. “The three key words are not simply introduced to the viewer, but visualised in a veiled way through the buildup of atmosphere and the characterisation of characters. The short film has a fluid content in a dynamic flow enhanced by cinematic techniques.”
The short film received maximum votes unanimously from all four jury members. Neagu added, “The choice of the jury is a praise for trying everything cinematically to create a professional product through competitiveness.”
Dracula Digital is a worldwide smartphone short film competition open to contestants aged between 16 to 29 and also one of the four official competitions in the Dracula Film Festival.
The three secret words that competitors must use were “Portrait”, “Testament” and “Candle”. The competitors had to make a three-minute short film in mystery, horror, or fantasy genres using a smartphone camera within three days, and upload it on YouTube to be judged by a jury comprising four professional filmmakers and academics.
Dr Yong Liu from UBD attended the opening ceremony of the festival. He announced the three keys for this year’s Dracula Digital Competition, followed by a screening of his documentary titled A Journey to Brasov, which tells the story of three UBD students visiting Brasov, Romania and teaming up with three Romanian students from University of Transylvania at Brasov to compete in the Dracula Digital 2022 Competition.
Screening on the opening night of Dracula Film Festival was the European premiere of A Journey to Brasov, after it was screened as the opening short at the 5th PRISM UBD Short Film Festival in November 2022.
In 2020, another UBD trio team led by DCI graduate Sahriz Azim Sahrun won the Dracula Digital 2020 Competition with the short film Image and took home the EUR300 cash prize.
