Student beats communication barriers with film
Film-making is helping a Christchurch student overcome communication barriers and understand people in ways he never expected.
University of Canterbury student Ricky Townsend’s science-fiction film TRUTH.exe won a top award at one of America’s leading film festivals, giving him a firm foot in the door for a career in the industry.
Townsend said the short film – in which the main character is given a USB drive he must upload online – is centred on the moral dilemma of whether we should value our wellbeing over knowledge and truth.
The film, which Townsend wrote, directed and produced, won Best Student Film at the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival this month.
The film was shot over two weeks in a guerrilla film-making style, mostly in darkness around Christchurch city.
He wanted to show that a big budget was not needed to create a big story.
Townsend, who has autism, is in his third year at tue university’s Ilam School of Fine Arts. He said film-making helped him understand others, and be understood.
Bringing the shots together in the editing room was always a ‘‘thrill’’, but he never dreamed the film would perform so well internationally, he said.
He tuned in to the streamed awards ceremony ‘‘just to see who did well’’, but was shocked to walk away with the top award.
The Miami festival was Townsend’s biggest win yet, but the young film-maker is a familiar face in the Kiwi film industry, with his early work winning the Overall Secondary Student Award at the 2016 New Zealand Young Film-makers Competition and the runner-up award at the FocusOnAbility Short Film Festival the same year.
His recent work, Christchurch earthquake short film Tremble and
TRUTH.exe, were selected for the 45th Boston Science Fiction Film Festival, Australia’s SciFi Film Festival, and the Changing Face International Film Festival.
His short film on autism, Mr. Savant, is one of 10 winning films in The Outlook for Someday 2019 Film Challenge — a nationwide film competition for people under 24 in New Zealand.
Like the Miami festival, the New Zealand International Film Festival will go ahead in an online format this year.
The festival will take place from July 24 to August 2, with premiere films available for audiences to screen at home.