Two cousins from Penticton and their fast-paced filmmaking landed them a top spot at the Vancouver Mulgrave ZOOM Film Festival.
Maddison Tebbutt and Ivy Allen recently took home top honours at the festival which featured more than 75 films submitted by 40 schools across the province.
The festival has one of the highest participation rates of any student film competition in the province. Filmmakers had 48 hours to plan, shoot and produce a finished film. The six-minute films are then judged by B.C. industry professionals.
Tebbutt and Allen took home Best Overall Film and also won top honours for Art Direction, placed third for Best Technical Film and were also nominated for cinematography.
“It was exciting to be at the awards ceremony,” said Allen, a Grade eight student at KVR Middle School. “There was a red carpet, ice sculptures and people were really dressed up. We weren’t sure that a school from Penticton could win.”
Tebbutt, a Grade 12 film student at Penticton Secondary School won a $20,500 scholarship to attend the Vancouver Film School.
Their winning film, La Carte Postale, centres on the story of a young girl who loses her sister during the sinking of the SS City of Boston as it travelled from Halifax to Liverpool in 1870. In addition to using period costumes and filming with a GoPro in the freezing waters of Okanagan Lake, the girls shot much of the film aboard the SS Sicamous.
Last year, the cousins won best overall film in the Kelowna Centre for Arts and Technology 48- hour challenge with the film, Dollhouse, and placed third at the Vancouver Sun/CBC student film awards.
“We enjoy each other’s company, so every time we get together it’s a riot of fun, and occasionally a movie comes out it,” said Tebbutt.
La Carte Postale can be viewed at the Penticton Secondary School website www.pen-high.com.