RMIT Vietnam team wins second place at 48 Hour Film Project

Tiếng Việt

RMIT Vietnam team wins second place at 48 Hour Film Project

The short film titled Vọng, created by a crew named Dementia, defeated 95 competitors to come second in the national round of the 48 Hour Film Project. It also won four prizes, including Best Poster Design, Audience Award, Best VFX and Best Direction.

Established in 2013 with only six members, Dementia has since grown into a crew of 18 individuals, all of whom are current students or alumni of RMIT Vietnam.

Tong Anh Linh, the Bachelor of Design (Multimedia Systems) alumnus who directed Vọng, shared her insights on the filmmaking process.

“Forty-eight hours is not a long period, but enough for 18 crew members to become closer and devote their best work to a short film in challenging conditions,” she said.

The Dementia crew receives the second place prize for Vọng.

The 48 Hour Film Project is an annual film competition in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop and a line of dialogue. They then have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements.

Accordingly, Dementia was assigned the genre noir, a French word describing films in which nothing is black or white, and there is no right or wrong. Other mandatory elements included a character named Hoai Linh or Hoai Lee, whose profession is a dog walker; bread as a prop; and the line of dialogue, “As I believe I am right.”

A fictional noir plot was then developed: in 2194, humankind faces the threat of extinction. Those who can bear children are isolated and scattered across different planets. They are all called Daisy. One of the last groups on earth has created a series of robots named Dog Walker to protect each Daisy at any cost.

After 48 hours of non-stop work, the film was finished.

Recalling the stressful weekend, Anh Linh, the director, said: “The biggest challenge during the filmmaking process was communicating with four groups in four separate locations to get my ideas and expectations across.”

“Each group has a role to play ranging from outdoor filming, music creation and stop-motion filming to 3D production,” she added.

A behind-the-scenes photo of the Dementia crew.

“I was extremely fortunate to work with a team of talented and committed individuals. Importantly, we worked really well together. I think that is the primary reason why the film was selected as the first runner-up in the competition.”

The 48 Hour Film Project was established in 2001 by Mark Ruppert and Liz Langston in the USA, and brought to Vietnam by Australian event producer Ross Stewart in 2010. Since then, the 48 Hour Film Project has become one of the most creative and challenging competitions in the country.

Story: Doan Thanh Van