Quantum Shorts Winners announced!

The Quantum Shorts film festival is delighted to announce its three top prize winners, selected from a shortlist of ten incredible short films inspired by quantum physics. The shortlist was created from over 170 submissions from all over the world. Each winning team gets a cash award and engraved trophy, on top of the screening fee, certificate and one-year digital subscription to Scientific American awarded to all finalists.The National Quantum Technologies Programme is the UK Scientific Partner of Quantum Shorts.

Slide! - a quantum thriller involving a detective, a serial killer and the theory of the parallel universe from director Thomas Tay Li Guo, took home the first prize and received $1500 for the work. Tay, an undergraduate student in materials science in Singapore, has a diploma in screenwriting. “I am a strong believer that arts and science coincide on many areas and Quantum Shorts did a fantastic job on proving that,” says Tay, who made the film with co-producer Lin Tianyun and two actors.

The runner up prize of $1000 goes to If the World Spinned Backwards by Leonardo Martinelli and co-writer Arthur Valverde, a poetic imagination of how quantum theory’s independence of time would change the human experience. Martinelli, a Brazilian filmmaker, said that participating in Quantum Shorts was a unique opportunity. “The festival has an extremely original proposal and format. Even having participated in many festivals, I have never seen something like it. It's an honor to be a part of it,” he said.

Decided by online public vote on the shortlist, the People’s Choice Prize of $500 goes to Legio VIII Quantae: The quantum resurgence after the fall of Silicon Valley. PhD student Andrea Rodriguez Blanco gathered a cast of friends and family to film this faux documentary in the Spanish town of Leon, imagining its future as a quantum city. 

Quantum Shorts is organised by the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore with support from media partners Scientific American and Nature, scientific partners and screening partners. It has run every year since 2012, alternating between calls for short films and flash fiction. 

All films are being screened around the world. Look out for more details on screenings taking place in the UK in the summer by members of the National Quantum Technologies Programme.

Learn more and watch the films at https://shorts.quantumlah.org