2017 Childnet Film Competition winners announced

04 Jul 2017 Becca Cawthorne

Yesterday was the Childnet Film competition 2017 Finalists’ event! The event was attended by 43 young people and over 40 Industry guests. The event revolved around the young people and the films that they had created, with a private screening of the finalists’ films at the BFI on London’s Southbank.

The Winners:

Primary Category

Secondary category

1st Place: Dover College

3rd Place: Holy Trinity College

The Judges

Our panel of experts had the unenviable task of judging the finalists’ films. Our Judges are members of industry who looked at the films considering which were the most creative, closest to the theme and which had a clear message. the judges for the 2017 film competition were:

David Austin OBE – Chief Executive, British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)

Joanna van der Meer – Film Tutor and Family Learning Programmer, BFI Southbank

Catherine McAllister – Lead for online safety and Head of Safeguarding in the Children’s department, BB

The event

The event had a great reception, with young people really being the stars of the show as they took part in a variety of interactive activities and explained their films to the guests. The judges commented that this was an exceptionally difficult year to choose the winners as the quality of the films were so high. It was certainly clear from the guests that they were truly inspired by the positive and creative films the young people had made.  Most importantly, the young people who had travelled from across the UK to the event had a fantastic time being part of the competition. Find out more about what they thought:

 ‘I think it’s a great way of teaching children how to be safe, because it’s also a fun way of being in a competition, so it’s competitive. Through the competition I learnt that even if you do something wrong you can always find a way to make it better’- Young person, primary category winner

 ‘I think this competition is really good for teaching people about online safety, on top of that we had a lot of fun doing the video! It took us a few hours and overall the experience was really good for us, and today was just the highlight’ – Young person, secondary category winner

Teachers who came along with the young people also described how taking part in the Film Competition was an important educational experience for their students:

‘The film competition puts online safety into a practical setting, in school or at home children don’t always get it, but putting those messages into a film they get into it and understand it more because it’s encouraging them to do something for themselves; something that’s big, that other people will see, and something that’s fun.’  – Teacher

The Competition

Now in its eighth year, this national competition invites young people aged 7-16 years to create short films to inspire their peers to use technology safely, responsibly and positively. Harnessing the positive power of digital creativity, the project gives young people an opportunity to take the lead in educating and empowering young people in their school and across the UK. Over 120 entries were received from children and young people right across the UK, and today the 6 winning entries will be showcased at a private screening at the BFI in London attended by industry guests and all of the young filmmakers. The films are all BBFC rated and will be shown on the big screen before the winners are announced and prizes awarded.