Filmmaking graduates win DBACE 2017 Awards for Film for second consecutive year

Two recent film graduates from Manchester Metropolitan University have won the prestigious £10,000 Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprise (DBACE) Awards for Film.

Danielle Swindells and Francesca Carr, who both graduated with BA (Hons) Filmmaking from Manchester School of Art, will also receive a year of business mentoring to get their film project off the ground. Fellow Manchester Metropolitan Filmmaking graduate Ben Green made it down to the final shortlist of five in a highly competitive field.  

The fantastic achievement is the second consecutive year that Manchester Metropolitan University students on the BA (Hons) Filmmaking course have walked away with the top prize. Thomas Payton-Greene and Dr Safiya Noor Dhanani won the 2016 DBACE Award for Film for their project Samaanata. 

Danielle (graduated 2015, MRes grad 2016) and Francesca’s (grad 2016) winning collaboration will be an artist documentary that looks at the 99 interfaces, or ‘peace walls’ in Belfast that divide the landscape into defined zones, and explores how dwelling in a landscape maintained on tradition and segregation affects the human condition of those living there.

Danielle’s work has previously been championed by Professor Jason Wood and Professor Sarah Perks at HOME, Jarman Award winner Seamus Harrahan, Professor John Hyatt and filmmaker Marc Isaacs, while Francesca also recently won the Visegrad Animation Forum Short Film Pitch Prize for her work at Delaval Film.

Current Filmmaking Teaching Assistant Ben (grad 2016) was praised by the judges for his proposed project ‘Novi – Youth, Art, Identity: Sarajevo Twenty Seventeen’, and he has also recently been accepted onto the Random Acts North scheme.

Applicants were required to write a full creative business plan to pitch infront of a panel of creative industry and financial experts at Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in London.

Judges included Jim Bradshaw, Head of Film at BAFTA, Jo Stella-Sawicka, Artistic Director of Frieze for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia as well as senior bankers from Deutsche Bank.

Chris Daniels, Lecturer in Filmmaking at Manchester School of Art, said: “All of us within Manchester School of Art would like to congratulate Danielle, Francesca and Ben. To have two separate nominations on a list of five is a fantastic achievement, but to have won this national award two years in a row only increases the profile of all our creative and ambitious filmmaking students and alumni. 

“It is testament to the creativity, risk taking, and explorative approach fostered within the Filmmaking course that encourages unique new creative voices across expanded forms of filmmaking practice.” 

Danielle and Francesca will shortly begin their research in Manchester before making a research trip to Belfast in August. Production of the film will begin in October and last for around a year.

Danielle paid tribute to Manchester Metropolitan staff and urged future generations of students to enter the DBACE awards.

“Senior lecturer Jenny Holt is an asset to the Filmmaking course and the documentaries that she introduced to us in her classes were instrumental in my decision to specialise in the genre.

“Without Chris Daniels, I wouldn’t have even known about DBACE and it was his commitment to supporting myself and Fran in our preparation for the pitch in London that played a leading role in our confidence on the day. DBACE is such a large investment for an early career artist so don’t miss out.”

The Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprise (DBACE) is an awards programme for final year undergraduate/postgraduate creative students and first year graduates, providing financial and business support to help launch creative careers.

The programme is now in its 25th year, and since 1993 it has supported the launch of over 200 ventures.