Coca-Cola Zero video contest winners Gabriel Olson and Sean Barney take MOFILM Grand Prize at Cannes Lions 2010

Young filmmakers meet Avatar & Titanic Producer Jon Landau

Cannes Lions, Cannes, France – 23^rd June 2010 — MOFILM, the video contest community that helps aspiring film-makers showcase their creative talent for big brands and social causes, has announced the Grand Prize Winner of its Cannes ‘make an ad’ competition.

The Grand Prize winners are Gabriel Olson and Sean Barney from Los Angeles, California with Frankencouch, a tale of two very different friends, one tall and one small; on the search for a couch that is a perfect fit for both. In the end they compromise with two halves from different couches, coming together to make one.

http://www.mofilm.com/std/3ddb8a

The winner was chosen from nine individual finalists.

The winning video was shown on the main stage at Cannes Lions to over 1,000 delegates and marketing executives from the advertising industry.

Jon Landau, Jonathan Mildenhall (Coke), Sean Barney & Gabriel Olsen, Ralph Cochrane (Founder of MOFILM)

Jon Landau, Jonathan Mildenhall (Coke) and Sean Barney & Gabrliel Olson

Gabriel Olson and Sean Barney said: “Showing at Cannes has been such a brilliant experience for us, especially the opportunity to mix with fellow creatives and one of our filmmaking heroes. We chose the Coke Zero brief because it challenged us to make the impossible become possible.  There was a problem one day, a solution two days later.”

Competition participants from all over the world had just six weeks to make an ad for one of nine leading international brands including AT&T, Bud Light, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero, Kodak, Lego, Logitech and Nokia

Jonathan Mildenhall, VP Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence for Coca-Cola said, “Given our commitment to emotionally engage with our consumers on a daily basis we are always looking for new ways of developing great content. By partnering with MOFILM we have sourced brilliant content for each of the Coke brands. Gabriel and Sean produced a big emotional story around the Coke Zero proposition that is based on Possibilities. Their story is not only unique and distinctive for our brand but the execution is superb. Casting, editing, direction, colour and sound are all superb. Creative excellence in motion.”

Each of the nine individual winners has been flown to the Cannes Lions Festival in France, where the grand prize film was chosen by a distinguished jury of filmmakers and executives from the advertising industry.

About MOFILM

MOFILM is the leading video and film contest community for aspiring filmmakers, with members all over the world. MOFILM works with global brands to showcase talent and create innovative new ideas.

MOFILM filmmakers are valued by brands. Our competitions give our partners a chance to tap a huge reservoir of international filmmaking talent, as well as developing a wealth of content to be distributed online and via mobile devices. MOFILM contests also help brands engage with creative talent around the globe.

www.mofilm.com

For more information, please contact:

Press@mofilm.com

Jimmy Bui teaches an after school class for 12 year olds and uses filmmaking to get them involved in something accessible and stimulating. At the Cannes Lions 2010 festival, Jimmy won first place for Kodak with a film made by a dozen of his talented pupils. Here he talks to MOFILM about what it means to him, the children he teaches and his message to Kodak

MOFILM would like to issue a direct apology to community involved with the recent Nokia MiniMo contest and Will Tribble.

It has come to our attention that the Critics Award winner “Forrest Chump” was not an original creation, as required by the terms and conditions of the competition but had been copied from Will’s Tribble’s “Forrest Gump in One Minute, in One Take“.I. This issue should have been dealt with as soon as it was flagged however it was not. We will be holding a full review of the administration of this competition.

We would like apologise unreservedly once more for this error. We didn’t realise that the film that we chose was a copy, we would have instantly removed the submission from the competition if we had. As it stands, the original winner has now had their prizes revoked and we will be announcing a new winner soon.

Will Tribble has also been invited to the London Film Festival as the guest of MOFILM and the One Minute One Take film will be shown during the MOFILM London Film Festival ceremony.