The second ETp film competition, ‘Always misunderstood’, once again produced a large number of high-quality entries, which we all very much enjoyed viewing. The interpretations of the story were varied and inventive: there was an interesting hand-drawn cartoon of a woman finding her ideal job in a pet shop and several tales of overcoming bullies; some students had clearly traced the script back to its origins in a commercial for wind power and based their stories on this; we had musical notes coming together to produce harmony, interviews with misunderstood teenagers, even a tractor driven by a farmer showing his gratitude for the rain which had arrived to water his crops.
Amongst the features the judges were looking for were originality in interpreting the story, clarity of storyline, effort and engagement on the part of the students, as well as use of English. After much discussion, their final decision was to award the prize to the students of Instituto Universitario Franco-Inglés de México in Metepec, Mexico, led by their teacher Alejandro Osorio Flores, for their enthusiastic portrayal of a musical note finding its place in a harmonious musical ensemble. You can view their video here. The winners will receive £100 of gift vouchers to share, and their teacher will receive a copy of Jamie Keddie’s ebook Videotelling.
Highly commended was the entry from the students of the Secondary School with Intensive Learning of Foreign Languages #4 in Kurchatov, Russia, led by their teacher Marina Leonova, whose video involved interviews with creative teenagers. You can view their video here.