SINGAPORE — Local short film Oh Lucy!,written and directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi from the Singapore-based NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia was announced the second prize winner of the 17th Cinéfondation Selection in Cannes today (May 23).

The Cinéfondation Selection is a foundation under the patronage of the prestigious Cannes Films Festival, created to inspire and support the next generation of international filmmakers. The Cinéfondation selects shorts and medium-length films presented by film schools from all over the world and serves as parallel section of the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival.

Oh Lucy! competed alongside 1,631 submissions from 457 film schools around the world this year, including fellow Singapore submission, Last Trip Home (directed by Han Fengyu and produced by Adar Ng from the Ngee Ann Polytechnic School of Film and Media Studies), which was also shortlisted to the final 16.

The jury led by veteran Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami awarded the first prize to Skunk, by director Annie Silverstein of the University of Texas at Austin. She takes home €15,000 (S$25,600) and a guarantee that her first feature will be given a berth in a future Cannes Film Festival while second Place Hirayanagi wins €11,250 euros.

Oh Lucy! follows the story about a 55 year-old single office worker in Tokyo, who finds a new identity in Lucy — a name and persona she gets from an unconventional English language class. The film was shot in Japan and Singapore, and was co-produced by Upside Down Concepts, a Singapore media company.

The top three winners were awarded at a ceremony prior to the screening of the winning films in Cannes on May 22 at the Buñuel Theatre.