On a beautiful Los Angeles afternoon, the SMIBE (Society for Moving Images about the Built Environment) jury met at the Neutra VDL House to deliberate the finalists of the short film competition “Story about a Place”. The jurors were Christopher Aykanian (Atypical Studio), Juan Azulay (Mattter Management), Johanna Blackley (Norman Lear Center), April Greiman (Made in Space), Paul Petrunia (Archinect), Mitchell De Jarnett (Studio), Peter Tolkin (Tolkin and Associates), and Orhan Ayyüce (elseplace).
With its first annual competition, the organizers brought together a growing body of moving image stories about the built environment. SMIBE turned to a talented community of professionals, college and university students from architecture, landscape, urban design, art, industrial design, interior design, motion graphics and film to offer a challenge: produce an engaging and entertaining moving image story that illustrates the theme of “Story About a Place.” The jury looked for stories that reveal new sides or issues about a place told by memorable characters and, above all, for groundbreaking work that blends rigorous craft with intelligent storytelling.
The organizers received over 90 entries from 13 countries. Of that, twenty-four pieces, from both the general and student categories, were considered. The jury watched every piece followed by discussion of each piece.
In the student category, the jury selected 4 finalists:
Powering Forward: Kentucky’s Energy Dilemma
The student prize will be divided between Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Adapt; one a carefully constructed visual essay about a place in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the other, a subject driven story about a place in Portland, Oregon.
In the general category, the jury was unanimous that none of the general category projects were of such exceptional quality to give a first prize, but four programs did stand out from the rest:
Opinions or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Palast
The jury found merit in a number of other projects, their favorites can be seen here. The rest of the films that were submitted can be seen under “Story about a Place” Entries (the 1st round selection entries have been listed first.)
SMIBE posted all of the finalist’s pieces on their website with the hope that they will generate discussion (there is space below each piece for comments and discussion) not just about the medium and the technical execution of the pieces, but about the content.
The competition proves that this developing genre has noble aspirations with enormous potential to inform and entertain us about our built world. For 2009, SMIBE sets a new goal to invite at least 200 entries, keeping the competition free of charge, and promoting smart discussion about real issues of our built world.
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