Spanish film takes first YouTube ‘Your Film’ festival honours

YouTube’s come a long way from being just a platform for sharing frivolous online videos. Heck, it’s now somewhere that serious filmmakers can share their work, and win awards while they’re at.

The world’s most popular online video-sharing platform has announced The Guilt, by Spannish filmmaker David Vitorri as the winner in its inaugural ‘Your Film’
festival.

The victory, announced at the Venice Film Festival, sees Vittori walk away with a US$500 000 YouTube original production grant to work with renowned filmmaker Ridley Scott’s production company Scott Free.

Actor Michael Fassbender, who was also on the judging panel said the film was “mature and confident”. “I was engaged from the top of the film,” he added.

The Guilt focuses on a man obsessed with revenge after his wife’s murder.

YouTube viewers chose the 10 finalists from a preliminary round for of 50 semi-finalists from around the globe.

Vittori said he had already presented his planned project to Scott and Fassbender.

“We have a lot of work to do and, I don’t know — if I can start tomorrow it’s better for me,” he said.