Trumpet by current student Kevin Haefelin, and Así en la Tierra by alumnus Joel Vázquez Cárdenas ’18 have both advanced to the shortlist of the prestigious 2020 BAFTA Student Film Awards held by The British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Out of a total submission of 691 projects, Haefelin’s and Vázquez Cárdenas’ films are two out of only twenty projects selected to compete for an award in the Live Action category. Winners will be announced on June 16.
Trumpet tells the story of a Japanese trumpet player on a cultural pilgrimage to discover New York City jazz who experiences a hell of a night after being lost in Brooklyn.
In Así en la Tierra, After losing his harvest when a meteorite crashes on his farm, Salvador Huerta conspires with the local priest to profit from the townspeople's faith by pretending that the space rock has holy powers.
According to BAFTA, “Directors on the shortlist will be invited to a series of online events during the next four weeks, including speed networking events with industry guests from BAFTA's membership, a panel on US film festivals and a panel on the subject of representation, co-produced by Inner Voice Artists. All of the filmmakers on the shortlist are given the opportunity to apply for and join BAFTA's New Talent programs, which includes year-round access to online events
Kevin Haefelin is a Swiss filmmaker based in New York. He is a Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) graduate with a BFA in film and is finishing an MFA in Directing at Columbia University. His award-winning short films have been invited to over 150 film festivals worldwide including Locarno Film Festival, Max Ophüls Preis, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia and Rhode Island Int. Film Fest. In 2019, he was nominated for the IMDb New Filmmakers Award and won the Best Directing Award at Kyiv Film Festival. Chosen as a script reader for the 2020 Sundance Institute's Screenwriters Lab, he is now writing his first feature film.
Joel Vázquez Cárdenas was born in Colima, México where his father exposed him to classic sci-fi movies from an early age, which is still his favorite genre. At age 18, he moved to LA where he began his film education, graduating summa cum laude from UCLA’s film program in 2012. In 2018 he obtained his MFA in film from Columbia University.
