A SHORT film about a University of Bedfordshire graduate returning to his homeland for the first time in over decade has been nominated for a national award.
Media production graduate Nick Asgill left Sierra Leone in 1999 to escape the violence during the civil war.
The 26-year-old, who graduated from the university in 2009 and lives in Luton, returned to Sierra Leone more than ten years later, filming his experience on his iPhone.
He is now in the running for an award at the iPhone Film Festival.
“It’s something that I have always wanted to do, and when I found out I could record HD footage on my iPhone, I decided to film the whole thing,” said Nick, who has just become a dad for the first time.
“I put it up on Youtube and it got over 600 hits in a week, which was a bit unexpected.”
Nick entered an extract of his film, called Routes to My Rootz, into the documentary category of the iPhone Film Festival and was delighted to find out that he had been nominated.
“If I did win, I would be very happy, but I always wanted to make this film and I wanted others to see it,” he said.
Nick’s extract can be seen on Youtube at {http://www.youtube.com/user/NickAsgilldottcom|www.youtube.com/user/NickAsgilldottcom|Click here for the film}