'The Crossing' praised by prestigious judging panel in AHRC Awards

Film by Anglia Ruskin team ‘pushes boundaries of film and communication’

We’re pleased to announce that The Crossing, a multiscreen film by a cross-disciplinary team of film-makers from Anglia Ruskin, has been commended in the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s ‘Best Research Film Category’.

The team behind the film, including director Dr Shreepali Patel (Course Leader for our BA (Hons) Film and Television Production), were present at the BAFTA awards ceremony on Monday 14 November 2016 to witness a hard-fought contest for the category.

The judging panel said it was a close race, and they found it very hard to make a decision, calling The Crossing an “ambitious and deftly executed” film that “pushes the boundaries of film and communication”. In the end, it narrowly lost out to You Can’t Move History, a film by Polyanna Riuz from the University of Sussex.

Nevertheless, to be shortlisted in such a strong field was fantastic. As Jan Dalley, Arts Editor of the Financial Times and Chair of the Judging Panel, pointed out:

“The quality of the shortlisted films demonstrates the huge potential of using film as a way to communicate and engage people with academic research. I've been really impressed by the care and skill that the film-makers have taken to use compelling stories to bring the research alive. Film-making is an increasingly important way of capturing the huge range of arts and humanities research that plays such a pivotal role in helping us to understand the world we live in today.”

Speaking after the event, Dr Shreepali Patel commented:

"It's terrific to have film recognised as vital research publications in a complex climate where public engagement and impact is more important than ever."



Photo: The team at the BAFTA awards, from left to right:
Carl Peck (Visual Effects), Professor Rob Toulson (sound design), Reyshandrao Luximon (recent Computer Games Art graduate), Dr. Shreepali Patel (director, Film and Television Production), John Renney (Editor and recent Film and TV Production graduate) and Luis Auajze (VFX and Computer Games Art Lecturer).