St Ninian’s High School in Glasgow has scooped the Filmclub of the Year Award at an Awards Ceremony at London’s Odeon Leicester Square.
St Ninian’s beat over 3,000 schools from across the UK belonging to Filmclub, a scheme backed by educationalists and celebrities, to inspire children through the world of film. In Scotland, the scheme is supported by Scottish Screen and Regional Screen Scotland.
Three finalists, including St Ninian’s, were treated to lunch and a party at Planet Hollywood, and invited to attend the prestigious First Light Movie Awards, an annual event celebrating young British filmmakers. The finalists were selected for the initiative they’ve shown in using their filmclub, having fulfilled criteria ranging from interesting film choices and an inspirational leader to regular reviews on the Filmclub website.
St Ninian’s, which only joined the scheme last August, was chosen as overall winner for several reasons including: the outstanding quality of its members’ reviews, the way in which the club is run, with older filmclubbers mentoring younger ones, and its detailed and illuminating feedback about the Filmclub website.
Fifteen of the school’s Filmclub attended the star studded event, with 13 year-old Mark Flood and 17 year-old Madeleine Macauley accepting the award on behalf of the school. Madeleine said: “Winning was the icing on the cake as we all thought that going down to London was an excellent experience in itself but winning really made the day.”
Fellow pupil and club member, 13 year old Amy Hughes added: “Thank you to everyone at Filmclub for setting up the organisation because without them we wouldn’t have our film club and wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to visit London and win the award.”