Talented student film-makers tackle drink driving

Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD), Turners Auctions and Blue Light are proud to announce the finalists in this year’s Turners Short Film Competition, an event which encourages secondary school students to tackle the issue of drink-driving on screen.

They are: Botany Downs Secondary College, for the film ‘Drive’, Gisborne Boys Highs School (‘Whanau 2’), Mount Maunganui College (‘Bad Dreams’), Opotiki College (‘Plan B4 U Party’) and Waimea College (‘Going Home’).

Competition entrants had just five minutes of screen time to portray the key message ‘Plan B4 U Party’, and Turners Auctions, which is sponsoring the competition for a second year running, was highly impressed by what was produced. 

“We were blown away by the calibre of the students’ efforts – they’ve done an incredibly professional job, and the outcomes are compelling. It has also been very interesting to see the range of interpretations on the central theme. Drink driving is clearly an issue that affects our community in many ways, so we’re extremely proud to be associated with this effort to promote responsible choices by our young people,” says Graham Roberts, Chief Executive of Turners Auctions.

The two charitable organisations behind the competition, SADD and Blue Light, both work closely with young people, and are eager to harness student creativity and talent in film-making to push the anti drink-driving message to their young audience. 

Young people are overrepresented in all key statistics relating to drink driving, and with all statistics related to deaths and injuries rising from 2008 to 2009, the messages of the films could not be more relevant, says Anna Reid, National Manager of SADD. 

“145 people lost their lives to drink driving last year, so these student films have an important message for us all.  We hope that by watching these films, young people will have another reminder of the importance of making good decisions when out with their friends.”

“We will be releasing the finalist films online and to schools after the awards and we hope they will resonate with young people given they have been written, produced and acted by their peers,” says Miss Reid.

Brendon Crompton, National Manager for Blue Light says; “Blue Light, in partnership with the New Zealand Police, sees real value in ensuring young people focus not only on the dangers of driving intoxicated, but also the dangers of being a passenger in vehicles with intoxicated peers. The peer-to-peer education provided in this competition is a great vehicle for increasing awareness.”

The five finalists have been judged by SADD’s student ambassadors and their placings will be revealed at an awards ceremony on Friday 5th November, to be held at Turners Auctions’ showroom in Penronse, Auckland.

Radio personality, Mike Puru, will MC the event that will include a red-carpet walk for the student finalists and the announcement and presentation of the individual awards.  The final award will be presented to the 2010 supreme winner.

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