Established to offer students the chance to showcase their creative ideas, talent and skills through film, the SISFF received more than 100 entries. Films were entered in one of four categories – Public Service Announcement, Video Art, Narrative and Documentary – across Primary, Middle and High School age groups. Students came from a range of international schools, which gave them a unique opportunity to share and exchange great ideas while being immersed in global and multicultural experiences.

I had the pleasure of working on the committee, and through my involvement got to meet a whole lot of new and interesting people. It was a really great experience, and I can’t wait to get going on next year’s festival.

I am proud to announce that one of my Grade 5 students – Jean-Luc – won the technical award for Best Animation, which, considering his entry came from a project I considered one of my failures, was the icing on the cake for me!

I hope you enjoy the top 3 winners as much as I do:

Best in Show

1st Runner up

2nd Runner up (reminiscent of Flight of the Conchords)

I have to also include the winner of Best Cinematography, as it’s such a visually stunning film

And last, but by no means least, Jean-Luc’s winning entry for Best Animation

Of course in this busy life we all lead, finding time to write thank you letters is a tricky business. Cue technology!

First up we hopped onto Facebook and created video messages of thanks. If you have a webcam it should be remarkably straightforward. Just go to ‘compose message’, click on the video button and record!

The quality isn’t brilliant, but the ease of use definitely makes up for that (image below)

For those not on Facebook, we used the Voice Memos app on the iPhone to record a very simple message of thanks.

Clicking on the red circle starts and stops recording, and then you can email the mp4 file wherever you want.

Check out a sample thank you below!

I promise you, this took hardly any time at all, and I know the people who received their digital thank yous absolutely loved them!