Michael Winterbottom bestows first Short Circuit prize to director Robert Reed for his 1-minute comedy, ‘The Driving Test’.
Watson and Harmer named as runners-up in this Dailymotion/Raindance initiative.

September 9 2008: Celebrated film director Michael Winterbottom (‘24 Hour Party People’, ‘Mighty Heart’) last night concluded the month-long micro-short film competition which he inaugurated in early September by awarding top prize to 25-year old Robert Reed for his comedy ‘The Driving Test’. The ceremony took place in the Rex cinema and club, as one of the highlights of the Raindance Film Festival, with a screening of the ten short-listed films. Runners-up were Susie Watson for ‘The Wind of Change’ and Andrew Harmer for ‘Graffiti’.

A joint initiative of Dailymotion (the world’s largest independent video sharing site) and Raindance.tv (the newly formed IPTV operation first announced in July), the Short Circuit competition invited new filmmakers to create and submit 1-minute shorts. In the three weeks from announcement of the competition to closing date, over 120 shorts were submitted with entries coming from all over the world. Top prize for the competition is a week’s visit to the Cannes Film Festival 2009.

Said Michael Winterbottom, Jury President: ‘When we launched the competition, I was curious to see what it would throw up, and frankly I was not sure if such a micro-format would simply prove impossible to master. In the event the quality of the films was very high, and the tight format and deadline seems to have acted as a real spur to the imagination – I was particularly impressed by the sheer range of work on offer, and would like to congratulate all those who took part’.

The winning entry, Robert Reed’s ‘Driving Test’, is a hilarious self-contained comedy, in which the ordinary tensions of a suburban driving test spin off into a surreal outcome. By contrast, Andrew Harmer’s ‘Graffiti’ uses a dark tone and highly stylised animation to depict the crushing of an artist by a creature of his own design. And Susie Watson’s ‘The Wind of Change’ plays a gothic and sinister riff on the clashing of adult desires and infantile cruelties.

The winner, and runners up, can be seen on Dailymotion and on Raindance.tv.
Notes to editors:

1. The ten short-listed films were:
Action directed by Artur Piotrowski
Bla Bla Bla directed by Quentin Le Guennan
Drinking in the Shower directed by Michelle Chai
The Driving Test directed by Robert Reed (Winner)
Flight directed by Mark Hammett
Graffiti directed by Andrew Harmer (Runner up)
Push directed by Steven Hore
Rocket Girl directed by Clive Tonge
The Talk directed by Stanley Sowa Jr
The Wind of Change directed by Susie Watson (Runner up)

2. Images from the Short Circuit Gala can be found here