BU Research Blog

Bournemouth University’s Sue Sudbury has been named a winner at the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research in Film Awards.

Sue, a Senior Lecturer in Film and TV Production, received the Innovation Award for her short film Village Tales.

It is a participatory film made by four young women in rural India, who use handheld cameras to film their lives and interview friends and family about child marriage, as well as sharing their own experiences of being beaten by husbands, infant mortality, and harassment inflicted by in-laws.

“The stories and experiences of these women told first hand are shocking. However this film is a film of hope,” said Sue.

Launched in 2015 the Research in Film Awards celebrate short films, up to 30 minutes long, that have been made about the arts and humanities and their influence on our lives.

Entries for the awards this year hit a record high, with hundreds of submissions. The awards ceremony took place at BAFTA, London and the overall winner for each category will receive £2,000 towards their filmmaking.

BU Principal Academic Roman Gerodimos was also shortlisted in the AHRC Research in Film Awards, in the Utopia Award: Imagining our Future category, for his film At the Edge of the Present, which explores urban coexistence.

Jan Dalley, Arts Editor of the Financial Times and Chair of the Judging Panel, said, “The second year of AHRC’s Research in Film Awards has brought a fantastic range of powerful short documentary films of the highest quality and the judges had a really tough job to make their choices.

“Each of the winning films, which tell such amazing stories so well, beautifully illustrate the power of film-making as a medium to capture the importance and impact of research.”

Watch Sue Sudbury’s winning film Village Tales