Registrations Ghent Film Festival composition competition opened

Film music has been an essential part of the Ghent Film Festival for years. With this ninth competition the festival once again wishes to give young talent the opportunity to make a name for themselves as a film music composer. As a result candidates can follow in the footsteps of several great composers who attended previous editions of the Festival such as Angelo Badalamenti, Dario Marianelli, Gustavo Santaolalla, Hans Zimmer, John Powell, Maurice Jarre, Alberto Iglesias, Elliot Goldenthal and many others. "The Sabam Award for Best Young European Composer" has always enjoyed considerable international interest. Candidates must be younger than 36 years and are to compose a score for Roman Klochkov's animated short film, Administrators. In the film, the rabbit Egor needs to have a fire in his house put out. Soon he no longer sees the forest for the bureaucratic trees in his Kafkian descent into hell. In 2006 Klochkov won the Ace Competition for Best Student Short film at the festival with this graduation project as a student in the KASK (Faculty of Fine Arts) at Ghent University College. Last year the competition was opened to composers from all over Europe for the first time. At the time, British composer Christopher Slaski won the competition. After receiving the award, Slaski said: "It's really impossible for me to express in words my gratitude for the opportunity the World Soundtrack Academy provided and the pleasure and satisfaction I received from the experience. To have been selected out of so many entrants and then to meet some of the film composers I most admire, was so rewarding, and then to experience this momentous event in such glorious surroundings, only heightened the sense of occasion. The inspired performance of my score with the accompanying film at the WSA closing ceremony by Maestro Dirk Brossé and the Brussels Philharmonic and subsequently being invited to become a member of the World Soundtrack Academy, are two honours that will be hard to beat." Candidates can register here up to and including 30 June 2010; the competing score has to be submitted by the end of August. A professional jury with international experience, made up of people from the film and music industry will carefully assess the scores. The Brussels Philharmonic - the Flemish Radio Orchestra conducted by Dirk Brossé will perform the winning composition during the 10th World Soundtrack Awards ceremony on 23 October at Kuipke Ghent. Tickets for the World Soundtrack Awards are available here. For more information about registrations and the competition rules: Danielle Heynickx (tel 09 242 80 67 - danielle@filmfestival.be)