Media Release: 19 November 2012

Talented student film-makers tackle drink driving

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

They are: Otamatea College; Whangaparoa College; Putaruru College; Gisborne Boys High School and Wakatipu High School.

Competition entrants had just five minutes of screen time to portray the key message ‘Individual choice, community of consequences’ and Turners Auctions, which is sponsoring the competition for a fourth year running, was highly impressed by what was produced.

“We are amazed by the calibre of the students’ efforts – they’ve done an incredibly professional job, and the films are compelling. 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 charitable organisation behind the competition, SADD, is 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 are amongst our most vulnerable road users overall. With 30 teenagers already having lost their lives in road crashes this year, the messages of the films could not be more relevant, or more timely ahead of the high risk, holiday season, says Anna Braidwood, Chief Executive of SADD.

“142 people lost their lives to drink driving in 2010, so these student films have an important message for us all. We hope that by watching these films, people will have another reminder of the importance of making good decisions as drivers, passengers, and in looking out for our friends.”

“We will be releasing the finalist films online in mid December and we are sure that they will resonate with young people especially, given they have been written, produced and acted by their peers,”.

The five finalists have been judged by SADD student ambassadors and their placings will be revealed at individual award ceremonies held regionally with each winning school, SADD and Turners Auctions.

SADD is principally funded by the Road Safety Trust.

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