We are very happy to share with you the news that following last year's success with Emergensea, sisters Sophie and Gabrielle have won the Best Animation award, for the 2nd year running, at the Across Asia Youth Film Festival 2023.
Their film 'Lanterns' was also nominated as one of the top 3 finalists for the Best Film 2023 award which was a huge recognition of their achievement. More than 150 films were submitted from schools across Asia for the festival. It was indeed an amazing experience for them to receive their award personally at the gala awards ceremony at Tanglin Trust School, Singapore.
The appreciation and continuation of traditional lantern making, in the hope that it will live on through future generations by Sophie and Gabrielle Lei.
Over to Sophie and Gabrielle to tell us more about their film.
"Hi! I'm Sophie Kimberley Lei and I'm very enthusiastic when it comes to art and video editing and love to explore to develop my interest further. I learnt how to draw and animate by myself, experimenting with numerous tools and programs.
Working on Lanterns was an exciting project as we decided to make it in full colour. This, however, was challenging and way more time consuming. Despite this, I have to say that it was an incredibly rewarding experience when weaving the scenes together, as we could finally see our animation come together.
I'm really glad I got to work on this project, and aid my sister in bringing her story to life. I learned a lot of new techniques when helping with the animation, by utilising lighting, colours, and textures. Similarly with editing the final product. I'll always remember the gruelling process in completing the film, but also the time I spent with my younger sister."
"Hello :D I am Gabrielle Dana Lei and I like art and I love animals! I love to draw and spend most of my free time either sketching, painting or drawing either on paper or on my Ipad.
Our short film, Lanterns, is about a girl called Mei discovering her love for lanterns, and the importance of passing on traditions for the next generations. I wrote the story, drew the storyboards and animated, whilst my sister also animated and edited them together. Regarding the story, I have always been fascinated with dragons since I was a child, so when I came upon my old Chinese dragon lantern, the idea came to me.
We had to balance our time working on this project while preparing for school exams (especially my sister who is currently sitting for her IGCSE exams) and our other activities like ballet and piano lessons, so it was indeed a tiring but very exciting time for both of us. I will certainly be making more short films in the future as it's really interesting, enjoyable and rewarding, particularly watching the final product. I hope you will enjoy the film as much as we did in making it."
Congratulations to Sophie and Gabrielle and we look forward to seeing more of your films in the future.
