Short Film Winners

In a brief award ceremony after the six finalists were screened as part of the Wavescape Festival, Red Bull Media House (South Africa), represented by Russell Martin, said that Red Bull Media House had always focused on extreme sport and action films, but were now keen to work with films and filmmakers who could also add compelling storytelling to the action genre.

The winner of Shortcuts would get the opportunity to work with Red Bull Media House on a collaborative project, he said, before announcing the following winners: 1st: Donkey Unleashed (Dane Staples); 2nd: Skate City (Jonathan Kyriakou); and 3rd: Lost 4 Words (Dan Mace). Dan Mace received a GoPro Hero4 Silver Edition and a Quiksilver Syncro backpack, while Jonathan Kyriakou received a GoPro Hero4 Black Edition and a Quiksilver Syncro backpack.

The winner, Dane Staples, whose film Donkey Unleased captured the imagination of the jurors with its pace, music score, visuals and storyline, had scored first with 6 out of 8 jurors.

The Donkey Unleashed
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Skate City
{vimeo}113855987{/vimeo}

Lost 4 Words
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The three runners up finalists were Wake Skate (Wayne de Lange), No Life Wasted (Joubert Cronje) and Next Dimension (Chris Rogers).

Next Dimension
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No Life Wasted
{vimeo}113866236{/vimeo}

Wake Skate
{vimeo}103408418{/vimeo}

In formulating the juror's statement Monica Rorvik, Film and Media Manager at Wesgro, said:

"The jury had a tough job. We had to watch the 40 or so entries and narrow them down to our favorite ten, and then meet to discuss. Luckily most of our favorites overlapped and while re-watching the shorts, we were able to easily narrow down to the winners. It took four hours of discussion. We enjoyed many even more the second time around.

"In the end the decisions made were subjective, because so many films were meeting and surpassing the brief in terms of cine, editing and sound. Story was very important, as that helped the jury to find films that might engage more with us and with audiences. The Wavescape Short Cuts brief highlighted that this was a search for films of adventure and story and authentic voices came out on tops with the jury.

"It was great to work with Wavescape film festival team, Spike, Ross Frylinck, Shani Judes and Roos van der Weerd; the amazing team from Red Bull Media House, Russel Martin and Angela Illing; Kyle Lord from Go Pro; and Karim Norman from the SAE film institute.

"As Wesgro film and media manager I was very excited to discuss these films and filmmakers and look forward to helping producers become more export ready and to find a way to help companies monetize these and their on-going projects. Competitions like this one are a great way to do this and I hope the competition continues to grow."