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Watersprite is the Cambridge International Student Film Festival and is a Cambridge society independent of the central University. The festival is run by students, with the assistance of our patron, Hilary Bevan Jones. We are quickly establishing an event that showcases and celebrates new talented filmmakers from around the world. In turn, to help our attending filmmakers develop their talent, we host talks and workshops with dynamic, motivational speakers including many industry world leaders. Another important aspect of the festival is the opportunity to meet not just professionals, but other student filmmakers: aside from the inspiration that attendees find in the talks, this opportunity to share creative ideas, meet new friends and add to address books is one of the areas we are most consistently thanked for.
The centrepiece of our weekend is the Watersprite Awards ceremony, which in 2011 was powered by YouTube. We were honoured to welcome Tom Hollander as our host for the evening, and presenters included Bill Nighy, Kevin Macdonald, Joe Walker and Brian Woods. We presented 10 awards across the evening, to filmmakers from the UK, Europe and Asia, and all winners received a personalised glass award, cash prize and Shooting People membership for a year. It was also our great pleasure to invite all nominees to reception drinks and our after party, held at the glamorous Varsity Hotel!
Our weekend takes place in the city of Cambridge. In 2011 we partnered with Emmanuel College, The Cambridge Union Society and The Varsity Hotel, allowing us to hold the events in beautiful venues, and giving our attendees the chance to experience the best of both old and new that Cambridge has to offer.
Finally, a word about our name: the festival was originally called Cam*Era but was changed after the first year. Watersprite comes from the title of our first ever Film of the Year – Who’s Afraid of the Watersprite? - a film directed by Will McGregor which is now being developed into a feature film as a direct result of appearing at the festival. It’s a great film, available on iTunes. Here’s the trailer:
