TASMANZ, Tamil Short Movie Association New Zealand hosted its fifth annual film festival earlier in July screening eight New Zealand shot and made short films in New Zealand.
TASMANZ is a youth-led initiative with a passion for showcasing local cinematography talent amongst the Tamil community in New Zealand. The talents include everything related to film making – from cinematography, music, acting, to dialogue and story writing, screenplay, editing, directing etc.
TASMANZ organises an annual film competition and the competing teams’ films that are produced are screened at a grand film festival,” a spokesperson from TASMANZ told The Indian Weekender.
The film fest screened eight films at the event organised at Dorothy Winston Centre on Saturday, July 13 that was attended by approximately 600 people from the community.
“The show was a huge success with a crowd of almost 600 people attending, many of them supporters amongst the Sri Lankan and Indian Tamil community,” the spokesperson added.
As for the rules of the short film festival, the films can of any genre, but they have to adhere to a given guideline drawn by TASMANZ since its inception.
The guidelines state that the films should be between six and twelve minutes have a classification rating between General Audience to Mature, have Tamil as a major language of the film and should be entirely shot in New Zealand within a set time.
This year of the eight films screened- Aadhalaal Kaadhal Seiveer won the most awards bagging six trophies in different categories such as Best Short Film 2019, Best Supporting Actor- Gopi Dinakaran, Best Screenplay and Director (Beta Factory Productions), Best Editing by Bhaskar Nagarajan and Best Actress in Lead Role, Yalini Kandheswari.
Film Kaadhal Kaaram Koffee won three awards namely Runners Up for Best Short Film category, Best Music Director Sashank Sivasubramanian and Best Actor in a Lead Role, Vishwa Balasubramanian.
Other winners from the 15 different award categories were Best Production Design-Sriprasanth Balaras for the film Kural, Best Dialogue to Sethu from Sachi Productions, Best Concept to Pirunthan Balaras for Kural, Best Supporting Actress to Mrs Jeyagowri Sivakumaran for Varan, Best Child Artist to Thiyaasri Dhayaanand for the film Minmini and Best Cinematography to Vishwa Balasubramanian for the film Meendum Kanmun Kandaenae.
The winning team also received a $1000 grand prize award.
A spokesperson from the organising team regards TASMANZ as a group that encourages, supports and promotes film making creativity amongst Tamil New Zealanders.
“We have grown from our early beginnings five years ago, and each year we thrive on challenging and developing our competitors in the film fest,” the spokesperson said.
The organisation supports the Film Festival with workshops and meetings throughout the year, and by also entering locally made films in international short film competitions.
“We are proud that some of our competitors and their productions have received international recognition and appraisal on distinguished global platforms.
“As a member of the organisation, the journey to date has been memorable, and we have grown immensely and the support from the executive team members, sponsors and guests have been a fuel that has driven our passion for continuing offering a platform for creative Tamil people in New Zealand and we are always happy to welcome new competitors,” the spokesperson said.
People interested in TASMANZ work can contact them through their highly active Facebook page, know more about updates and new ventures.