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December 2003 - Webcinema Independent Film Internet Awards for 2003 Announced

Norfilms announces the awards for the best web sites promoting the work of independent film producers around the world through the Webcinema network. These awards are given to independent film-makers to acknowledge their efforts to promote independent film productions through their internet sites.

Norfilms are a British company who support the mutual networking of film and television producers, directors, artists through the Webcinema internet network site listing which is hosted at their web site www.norfilms.com. This network brings together film-makers from around the world for mutual support, exchange of advice, news, etc., and provides a support system to the independent production sector away from the mainstream film and TV industries.

This year's awards were made from a list of 53 independent companies around the world reviewed by Norfilms and submitted to them from the Webcinema membership. They represent a wide range of skills and professional standards, from one-man home-built sites through to work from professional designers using state-of-the-art techniques.

In all four producers' work was highlighted in this year's awards: Runners-up were (1) Wicked Witches Productions (http://www.members.tripod.com/wickedwitches), a Los Angeles company; (2) Automatic Films (http://www.automatic.biz/) a Danish web site that, although written entirely in Danish, showed how easy it is to present a small site attractively. The main runner-up and Flash Award Winner was a Russian site by Andrey Stankevich (http://www.andreystankevich.com/) who showed how to present information in a simple, attractive fashion and made the effort to provide both English and Russian translations.

The overall winner of this year's awards was a US independent company Nimble Productions (http://www.nimble-productions.com/). Although they were a small site they showed that it is possible to create a site that is both informative, attractive and effective in presenting information to the public.

The awards have been made on the basis of ease of use, in navigation, design, technical requirements for a browser, functionality and overall style. Surprises in the review included that fact that some of the more professional site failed to meet all the requirements, being either too elaborate or over-designed for a given function - using elaborate techniques and technology where a simple one would be better.

Judging the awards was made by Michael Bond, an experienced multimedia designer and founder of Norfilms, a Manchester, UK based company dedicated to nurturing new and young film-making talent. The company has supported Webcinema for a number of years to encourage international production cooperation.

Recently the company as been involved in optioning for production the controversial film project "Dustbingate", based on the true story of political sleaze in the constituency of Britain's Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. The company are planning to raise upto £5,000,000 in tax structured investment for production of this political comedy which has already been described by one reporter as a "political Full Monty".