Ashbourne student’s award-winning short film is a knock out
Ashbourne former student and film director Antony Popov has won awards for his hard-hitting short documentary Spoken Reflections: One Punch to Break Free on boxer Zuihayr Al-Qahtani’s journey to winning the world championship.
A poignant film that expresses the hardships of living whilst knowing you don’t quite fit in. A sensitive topic covered in a powerful way.
Among the award givers was the Rob Knox London Film Festival, which was set up to platform new and rising talent in the film and TV industry and to raise awareness about knife crime and social issues.
Antony is no stranger to winning awards however. At Ashbourne he won Best Short Film in the Moving Image Awards (MIA) for his production Continuum, inspired by the Christopher Nolan film Memento and his curiosity around memory loss. The MIA panel of judges were particularly impressed by the expert production and tension-building narrative of the story.
“I’m always looking for different ways to improve creatively and technically, and I’m focusing on applying that to all the projects I continue to work on.”
Antony graduated from Ashbourne with A level Film Studies A*, English Literature A*, Russian A* and French A and went on to attain a First Class BA Honours degree in Practical Filmmaking.
James, Dennis, Alberto and Benvinda are just a few Ashbourne teachers he applauds for their passionate and intellectually enriching teaching which helps students get great marks in their exams.
I feel like I truly got lucky with such teachers and genuinely wanted to sit in their lessons and hear what they had to say. Film Studies at Ashbourne was a delight to be a part of.
Antony is a member of the National Youth Film Academy and works as a production assistant at the Big Sky Productions. He continues to direct his own film projects and has worked with a variety of big brands and organisations such as Apple, Porsche, Red Storm Films and the New York Film Academy.
You can watch Antony’s award winning documentary Spoken Reflections: One Punch to Break Free on his website.
A level Film Studies at Ashbourne is popular and successful course with students achieving excellent results, winning awards and moving into careers in the film and media industry.