Thimun Film Festival Best Film – Cyber Bullying

The 6th annual  Thimun Qatar Northwestern Film Festival recently took place with a film about Cyberbullying taking the spoils for Best Picture. The event, now in it’s 6th year is a collaboration between Thimun Qatar and Northwestern University Qatar. Students are encouraged to submit films between 4 and 8 minutes in length, highlighting a social issue of their choice. It won’t surprise you that we are happy the subject of Cyberbullying is taking centre stage.

The film created by Singaporean Barnaby Duffy is just under 5 minutes of animated insight into the blight that is Cyberbullying. What we love about this, is it hits all the major focus points that Beat The Cyberbully discusses in it’s sessions to students, parents and educators. And it’s actually only through repetition of the ideas, the language and the pit falls, that we can actually achieve our goals of increasing education and awareness levels around the subject of Cyber bullying and Online Reputation.

The fact the the film festival is an opportunity for students to really spread their creative wings. That Cyberbullying was a subject choice for Barnaby is further evidence, as if required, that this is a subject that requires a lot of attention. The digital world is not going away and we have a responsibility to get our own levels of understanding and education up, so that we can be there for those that need your help. That help may manifest itself in your ability to say to a young person that you are there if they need you.

Let’s work together to address Cyber bullying. Here’s Barnaby’s award winning entry

We think it’s a great piece and hope that many people will go on to see this and perhaps resonate with one or two elements highlighted. At the end of the day, if we can all have open communication channels within our family units, at school and between peers. We can help to prevent further young people going on a lonely journey, which leads them to a destination with only one outcome in their mind. Let’s not allow them to get to that place.