The Two Minutes Silence Film Challenge

Following on from the huge success of last year's 90 Second Film Challenge, o-region launched a brand new roughcut film competition for 2005.

This year the challenge was called Two Minutes Silence. As ever, the rules were pretty simple. We accept films of any style or subject - the only rules are that films could be no longer than two minutes, and must have been made without any dialogue. Hence the name - Two Minutes Silence. Easy, eh?

To make things a little more straightforward, entrants were allowed to use relevant sound effects and/or a musical soundtrack - just as long as the film itself contained no words, voiceover or dialogue. What we were looking for was films that experimented with the ways you can tell a story on film without using a script or spoken words. We were looking for bold, experimental and imaginative films that really pushed the boundaries.

We had a huge response last year with over 40 films entered, and we managed to top that in 2005 with a total of 48 entries. The competition was judged over two evenings in June 2005. Our panel of professional judges included Bill Scott (director of Wild West Films), Lucy Frears (director of the Cornwall Film Festival) and John Jacobs (winner of last year's challenge). We asked them to pick their favourite films from the 48 entries, and as always the roughcut audience got to choose their favourite too.

This year's winners are listed below.

Challenge Results - Panel Awards

First Prize:
If The Population Of Cornwall Was 100 Toy Soldiers directed by Laura Hardman & Jack Morrison

Second Prize:
Will She, Won't She? directed by John Foam and Mickey Lion

Third Prize:
The Last Few Minutes of a National 6 Day Stareout Contest directed by Arran Hawkins

Audience Award Winner:
And That's How I Accidentally Managed To Confuse The Ecomob directed by Mark Jenkin