YOUTHS with a keen eye, creative mind and excellent camera and editing skills were rewarded for their talent at the Berjaya Youth Short Films Competition 2011 awards ceremony recently.

Nick Seah Tze Chyuan emerged the top winner out of 150 entries, walking away with RM40,000 and a Canon 5D MKII camera, with his film Dream House, which garnered the most votes in the competition.

The second prize of RM10,000 and a Canon Legria HF230 camera went to Teh Keh Ping for The Recorder, while third prize was won by Ker Yong Jie for Live Show. Ker took home RM5,000 and a Canon Legria HF S30 camera.

The competition, which was launched in July this year aimed at creating a platform for Malaysian youths aged 18 to 25 to share inspiring stories through film.

The youths were given three main themes to use in their films – “Inspire”, where they were encouraged to tell heartwarming stories about their parents, teachers, friends, mentors and even pets.

For the second theme – “Make A Difference” – films were to be centered around “empowering yourself and others” with stories of how one person has made a big difference in the community.

“Loving Earth” was the third theme, which was meant to be centered around the environment.

Three local film producers, Afdlin Shauki, Ah Niu and Gayatri Pillai, selected 10 short films out of the 150 entries, which were posted onto the official website for members of the public to for their top five favourites.

Berjaya Corporation Berhad CEO Datuk Robin Tan was very pleased with the overwhelming response in the first year of this competition.

“We believe we have succeeded in engaging the youth population to share their inspiring stories and spread the positive messages to our youth and the public,” said Tan.

“Their short film entries were very creative and resonated with many positive messages on issues which are close to their hearts.”

q To find out more, go to www.berjayayouth.com.