The short film Metal-Girl, shot by UG Film and Audiovisual Culture student Pawel Golonko, won the main prize at the SEA-EU Film Festival, an event initiated by the University of Split. The Croatian university will soon host a screening of the 11 winning films, 5 of which were made at the University of Gdańsk!

‘I absolutely did not expect this, it is a pleasant surprise and a great honour for me. I am very happy that the convention and story presented in the film hit the jury's sensitivity,' says the director of the film Metal-Girl. ‘The film has already rather completed its festival circuit. It could be seen, among others, at the Octopus Film Festival in Gdańsk, the ‘Young and Film’ festival in Koszalin, as well as at festivals in Austria, Greece, and Italy.’

The Festival was open to young filmmakers from all nine SEA-EU universities. It is a great opportunity for them not only to express themselves but also to see what their peers from other EU countries are working on. Some of them will soon meet in Split and present their films in front of an international audience as part of a Staff Week dedicated to the arts.

Out of 31 entries, 11 outstanding films were selected, of which as many as five were submitted by UG students. Here is the full list of works that qualified for the SEA-EU Film Review in Split:

• Metal-Girl ( Gdańsk) (Grand Prize)
• L'écologie en vers (Brest)
• L-Għarusa (Malta)
• CHAOS (Gdańsk)
• RADNA NEDJELJA (Split)
• Beyond the River (Gdańsk)
• Stempel (Gdańsk)
• Cavador (Algarve)
• The Sound (Algarve)
• Beyond the boundaries of the frame (Gdańsk)
• Stranded in Kazakhstan (Kiel)

The SEA-EU Film Festival's motto is ‘The best cinema speaks to you personally, revealing a part of you that you didn't know existed’. ‘We hope that this event will encourage other students and young artists to share their films,’ the festival organisers write.

About Metal-Girl

‘The film tells the story of a girl who discovers that she can attract metal objects, and just at the time when her former love returns to school. The girl tries to harness her new power and understand her feelings for her boyfriend,’ says Paweł Golonko.

Metal-Girl explores the vivid and turbulent emotions of adolescence, capturing the awkwardness, excitement and unpredictability. A central theme of the film is self-acceptance. There was no shortage of challenges during the making of the film. Due to a very limited budget, the director and his team had to be inventive, especially when depicting the main character's superpowers.

You can find out more about Paul's work on his Instagram.