Film contest

Anyone who has judged a film competition knows it's difficult to pick a winner. It's easy to sort out the wheat from the chaff. But after that it's tough to pick the best entry from a variety of styles and genres.

Interpretations (interpretationsfilm.com), a new online short film contest founded by The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift director Justin Lin, has found a solution: all filmmakers have to work from the same four-line script. Although directors can choose the genre, sets and characters, they are limited to using the same dialogue.

Elaine Chin, a Hollywood producer who is running the competition, says there are a number of reasons for the single script idea. 'We wanted to create a very minimal script that could be open to a variety of interpretations in terms of genre, tone and number of characters,' she says.

'The idea was also inspired by musings that Lin had about how different directors approach the same script and concept in different ways. For example, if Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen directed their own respective versions of a James Bond film, there would no doubt be two very interesting and different approaches.'

Chin says the purpose of Interpretations is to help develop filmmakers' unique voices and provide a platform for the winners to network in Hollywood. The Interpretations jury will choose five winners so that all genres are represented, each of them receiving a prize of US$3,000 and referrals to industry professionals.

The competition is an Asian-American initiative. But Chin is keen to point out that it's not limited to Asian-American filmmakers, although entrants must be resident in the US. 'The contest is open to everyone in the US, so I hope independent filmmakers of all backgrounds will participate and share their films.'