Thomas Payton-Greene was announced as the winner of the film category at the 2016 Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprise.
Thomas’ film proposal, Samaanata, is a social impact documentary about the root causes of gender based violence. The film will be shot in India and Thomas is collaborating with medical student and Gender Based Violence programme co-ordinator Safiya Noor Dhanani to produce the film, which will then be screened alongside workshops and panel debates to incite long term social change in both India and the UK.
Thomas said he “didn’t think we had a chance” when his nomination was announced, and when he heard they had won his “heart was pounding.”
He said: “I was so happy and proud that the work we’d done over the past few months had paid off. It was a little scary to sit down and think ‘We’ve actually got to do this now’, but overall I’m so excited to be able to make this happen.
The winners receive £10,000 each, plus year-long business mentoring from a Deutsche Bank executive and two days of intensive small business training to help launch their careers.
Thomas says there were challenges along the way, including balancing writing the presentations with full-time jobs – he is currently working as a Teaching Assistant at Manchester Met.
He said: “We love the project so even when we were stressed we were getting excited about the possibility of making the film.
“Whether we had won, came runner up or got nothing at all, we now have an exciting project ready to go, so the process of applying and pitching provided a framework for this idea to become a reality.”
He says his advice for other students would be that “You can make your ideas come to life if you turn up and work hard. Applying for things like DBACE and any type of funding or competition is incredibly useful to work out what you actually want to do, and how you can do it. Eventually you’ll find a way.”
Mary Oliver, Head of Media at Manchester Met, said: “I am delighted at Tom’s success at winning this prestigious award. Winning this competition establishes him as one of the UK’s best young filmmakers.”
