01/02/2007

A former student at Edinburgh College of Art has won a major film prize for a short documentary she has made about a trip made by her father across Russia.

Alice Nelson has been chosen to receive the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the Slamdance International Film Festival, in USA. Her film, A Map with Gaps also netted her $2500.

This was the 13th Slamdance Film Festival, which takes place in Utah. This year, it shattered all previous submission and attendance records, having received over 3600 submissions from 20 countries for less than 100 slots. In total, it announced 16 prize winners sharing $125,000 in
prize-money.

A Map With Gaps is an account of a journey made by Nelson's father through Soviet Russia in the early seventies, in a van he called Supervan. The film has screened and won awards in more than 20 festivals worldwide and, later this month, will screen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as part of the MoMA’s annual Documentary Fortnight Expanded.

Currently, Alice is working on a number of new Channel 4 commissions, for Clarity Productions, with producer Sarah Tierney - including Science Scams (being broadcast between the 5th-8th of this month) and Losing Myself (between the 12th and 16th of this month).