SINGAPORE — A short film titled Retch hurled its way to the top prize at the Cathay Motion Picture Awards 2015 (CMPA) held last night. The off-beat comedy, about trying to recall what one ate, by director-writer-editor Andrew Kose and director-writer-cinematographer Chervin Chua, won Best Motion Picture at the annual short film competition. The team took home a cash prize of S$20,000, the biggest amount for a film-making competition in Singapore. It is also the largest cash prize in all four years of the competition.

Coming in second place, with a prize of $12,000 cash, was the film Seletar, written and directed by Melinda Tan and produced by Yeo Zhi Qi, both of whom conceptualised the story about two school girls mourning the death of their friend. The $8,000 third prize went to the heart-tugging Fragments, a film by Jaze Phua, Jerry Lim and Justin Kan.

Organised by Cathay Organisation, the only movie exhibitor to organise an annual short film competition, this year’s theme was “Memories”, an homage to the local film stalwart’s 80th anniversary this year. As such, the short films had to have a running time of 80 seconds and a production deadline of 80 hours. This year’s competition started at noon on May 2 and ended on May 5, 8pm.

A total of 145 entries were submitted this year — up from 49 entries in CMPA’s inaugural year in 2012. It was then whittled down to 15 finalists by a shortlisting panel of eight members, including Derek Tan from Viddsee, Zaihirat Banu Codelli, chief executive office, Oak3 Films Ltd, and film-maker Boo Junfeng.

These were then made available for public voting and viewing. The winners were determined on the criteria of originality, production quality and entertainment value by an eight-member judging panel that included award winning Hong Kong producer Nansun Shi, Ng Peng Hui, Variety magazine Asia Editor Patrick Frater, Warner Bros Singapore General Manager Ng Peng Hui and Singaporean film director Tan Pin Pin. Garnering the highest number of public votes for the Viewer’s Choice Award was Artist by the group Smells Like Team Spirit (Andre He, Ho Wen Long, Jeremy Ho, Luna Pham, Russell Chan and Tan Yang Er).

The film-makers behind all the winning films will also receive an exclusive Cathay VIP card worth more than S$4,000 and will get their films screened in Cathay Cineplexes. Genevieve Loh