A film created by a Victoria University of Wellington student has won the Best Experimental Award at the 2014 Uni Shorts International Student Film Festival.
Zach
Challies, a Master of Design Innovation student, made the film as part of an
assignment for the postgraduate design led futures course last year, under the
supervision of Ross Stevens, a senior lecturer in the School of Design.
In
Vitro was
one of 35 films selected to screen in the competition in Auckland last week.
The three minute film explores a future where organ-growth is as simple as
setting up a fish tank in your own home.
The
concept of In Vitro, explains Zach, is an imagining of the future of
medical science and growing anatomy. “It’s suggesting that maybe in the not so
distant future we will have the technology to make back-up surrogates of our
essential organs, the way we do our data, and store them privately in our
homes—a physical insurance policy, in case of illness or trauma.
“It’s
also asking whether the stigma around vices and self-indulgence will continue
when we have the ability to replace any of our damaged organs with a pristine
copy of the original,” he says.
Zach’s
prize is an Avid Media Composer licence with Symphony Option, three tickets to
the German Film Festival and entry to Screen Edge Forum 2015.
“As a design student I'm really happy that my
entry garnered attention in a film festival largely entered by students
studying film making,” he says.
You can watch In Vitro here: https://vimeo.com/78789503
