Newsworthy: A group of movie-making students from New Zealand took the top prize at the regional Kid Witness News competition. — Photo courtesy organising committee

HA NOI (VNS)— A short film featuring a teenage girl who deals with her grief after the loss of her best friend through writing won its young makers the top prize at the Kid Witness News (KWN) Contest for the Asia-Pacific region.

The compelling story in Forever Emily was created by three secondary-school students from Mount Aspiring College in Wanaka, New Zealand. Daisy Thor-Poet, Ming Thor-Poet and Katherine Millis were crowned as the regional champions at a ceremony held in Ha Noi yesterday. They also came first in the Best Videography category.

The video was highly acclaimed by the judges for its emotional depth and the impressive technical skill on show.

"We are very happy and honoured to get the prize," said 14 year-old Daisy [Thor-Poet].

She said that she was grateful to the contest for giving children the opportunity to express their ideas creatively, learn about the value of teamwork and consider the issues that are affecting people today.

A student group from the Ha Noi-based Amsterdam Secondary School received the award for Best Script for their entry One New Message, a film portraying the dire consequences of a future with a complete reliance on text messaging to communicate, and a lack of face to face interaction. The video was praised for being particularly relevant in today's age of digitisation and mobilisation.

"Our message is that people should not let text messaging control their life. It is a means to communicate more easily in life but we should control it," said Hoang Phuong Chi, the main script writer of the group.

The KWN Programme is a long running hands-on video education programme established by Panasonic in the US in 1989. International and regional categories were subsequently created in 2004.

This year, elementary and secondary school students were challenged with producing a film based on the theme of communication or the environment. Panasonic supported the students by providing them with professional video equipment and hands on training workshops.

This year's competition received more than 1,900 entries from around the region and seven were chosen to represent their respective countries.

The winners in the other categories are as follows: Malaysia for the Creative Concept Award, Singapore for Best Editing, Thailand for Best News Angle, Indonesia for Most Motivational and India for Best Eco Message.

These seven country winners from the region will qualify for the Global KWN Contest next year.

"The programme this year saw many creative ideas from the students and I believe they definitely learnt a lot from it," said Naoki Sugiura, director for Planning and Brand Promotion at Panasonic Viet Nam.

"It is inspiring to see these young children being able to identify real pressing environmental and societal issues and creating professional quality videos to talk about them," he added. "We hope this meaningful programme will contribute to raising the creativity and communications of the world's young generation."

Shinichi Wakita, general director of Panasonic Viet Nam, told attendees at the ceremony that he hoped the participation of the students could bring the ideas and concerns of the young generation to the wider community, helping to raise society's awareness on environmental and social issues. — VNS