Student filmmaker headed to Cannes | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

A former Burnside student has won a top award for his original film - which will now be screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

Kyan Krumdieck, a third year arts & humanities student at Victoria University, took up the challenge of producing an original five-minute film in one week while on exchange at the University of California at Berkeley. Called the National Campus Moviefest Competition, Mr Krumdieck organised a team, wrote, directed, starred in and edited the film Peep Show.

Mr Krumdieck's film won the best film award for Berkeley and will now go on to the national competition. He receives a trip to the national awards ceremony in Hollywood and tickets to the Cannes Film Festival where the top student films will be screened. 

The film is an experimental film in the style of a silent black-and-white comedy. It follows the exploits of two cartoonish pranksters, Buster and Charlie, who attempt to get in bed with a woman who they have been spying on through a hole in the wall.

The film explores the manipulation of the film form to distort people's interpretation of a scene, through the lens of a misogynistic film. Several homages are made to the films of the time including The Great Train Robbery and Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail.

His proud mother, Susan Krumdieck, said he had been doing very well at Berkely. ``He made it into two classes that the students have to compete to get into - screen writing and film production. That's pretty good for a Kiwi boy in one of the top American universities.'' 

Mr Krumdieck is in his second semester at Berkeley and will finish there just before Christmas. He then has a couple of classes to go at Victoria University, where he has been studying english, philosophy and film, in order to finish his degree unless he decides to complete his honours year.

Mr Krumdieck's winning film Peep Show can be viewed on YouTube.