Maltese short film wins Med festival

Ward Sixty6, a short film about life in a mental asylum directed and produced by two young Maltese women, has won the prestigious Grand Prize in the fourth edition of the Mediterranean Short Film Festival 2006.

Cathleen Tanti and Angelique Muller created the 14-minute movie as part of their Bachelors of Communications degree thesis.

Ms Tanti told The Times that the plot revolves around what it means to be crazy and the stigma surrounding mental illness. The film was shot at St Vincent de Paul Residence for the Elderly, Luqa.

She confessed that she and Ms Muller were very surprised to have won the Grand Prize since their competitors included quite a few good movies backed by big budgets. Ward Sixty6 cost the two young women around Lm400 as opposed to thousands of euros for some of the other films.

Thirty-seven short movies from around the region competed at the festival, held in Tangier last week, Ward Sixty6 had been awarded the Best Maltese Entry in The Golden Knight Film Festival last November and was also screened in the Girls On Film - Female Artists' Festival in Manchester last March. It will be screened later on this year in the Kurtz Film Festival in Germany.