A view through my eyes

From school assignments to award-winning films, three projects produced by Dubai Men's College (DMC) Applied Media students have found their way to success.

Nasser Jaber, Ahmad Mazroui and Moath Bin Hafez won the Emirates Film Competition awards for best UAE and Gulf short documentary and best UAE short fiction film respectively. The competition took place last month in Abu Dhabi and was open to filmmakers and producers from the region.

A student perspective

"If female students were to study with us in the same school, it would be an incentive for me to work harder and prove myself to them," said a student interviewed for the short documentary directed by Nasser Jaber, a second year student at the Applied Communications Department at DMC.

His film, Educational Contrasts, tackles some important student issues: social class and differences between public and private schools, co-education in schools, teaching in English and Arabic and generally what students think about each other.

The issues are portrayed in a rather comic but realistic way with students being asked at random for their opinions on the subject.

"I was encouraged to pursue the ideas in the movie because they are daring and strong," said Jaber, who will be travelling to the US after his graduation to study cinema production and direction.

"The film took over a month to make. The award that I received has motivated me to produce more movies," Jaber added.

Jaber's colleague Ahmad Mazroui won the Best Gulf Short Documentary for directing a movie on gender discrimination and co-education. Titled Discrimination, the film came about after discussions with friends. "I did not expect to win, especially after my colleague won an award. It feels great though," he said.

Al Mazroui's film carries interviews with students, recording their arguments, points of agreement and disagreement.

Moath Bin Hafez, a DMC graduate, won the Best UAE Short Fiction Film award for producing On the Line. The 13-minute film describes a simple meeting of friends at a coffee shop.

The friends, all UAE nationals, are shown trying to reach a coffee shop; they eventually arrive but have no time or inclination to talk to each other, as each one of them is busy with his own private life on the cell phone.

"More people should make fiction films and talk about modern life in Dubai," said Bin Hafez, who is now working in a media group. "Winning an award is an incentive for me to make better movies. I enjoyed being a student filmmaker because as a student, you get to choose what you want to do."

It all started in college

Guy Brooksbank, faculty member in the Applied Communications Department at DMC, said that students study a number of courses at the department. Journalism, media production, video-editing, graphic design and multimedia are some of them.

The films that the students produced were part of their course requirements. Students have a number of studios equipped with state-of-the-art equipment to help them perfect their filmmaking skills.

The university not only helps fine-tune student talent, but also tries to establish links with companies in the industry to introduce students to the professional world.

"We have strong ties with the industry; we plan trips to certain places and we have professionals coming over to discuss issues here. Our students graduate and have the choice to work in the design world, media groups or advertising houses," Brooksbank said.