‘Cinematic’: Inside student’s award-winning, horror masterpiece

Describing his latest project as abstract horror, an aspiring Toowoomba filmmaker has shared the inspiration behind the intriguing piece which resulted in him winning a national award.

Aspiring filmmaker Ben Rosenberg was awarded Best Director overall at the Nextwave Youth Film Awards.

The Toowoomba Grammar School student received the award for his film Green Room – a horror abstract-inspired piece which follows the story of a man trapped in a room.

Toowoomba Grammar School Year 12 student Ben Rosenberg won Best Director overall at the 2022 Nextwave Youth Film Awards, pictured here with friends Lawson Booth and Tom Knudsen (right). Picture: Kevin Farmer

“The project had to have something green and the theme was transformation,” he said.

“(As an audience) you don’t know why but it’s insinuated that he’s being experimented on by powers greater than himself.

“He starts to see visions and his shadow starts to attack him so because they’re both connected, the only way to defend himself is to hurt himself.

“It sounds weird when I try to explain (the concept) but I thought it was cinematic.”

Toowoomba Grammar School Year 12 student Ben Rosenberg won Best Director overall at the 2022 Nextwave Youth Film Awards for his film Green Room. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Inspired by a painting of a microwave he saw on social media, Mr Rosenberg said the three-minute long film featured one cast member and took about four days to shoot.

His short film was one of 160 projects submitted to the competition with entrants aged 14 to 25 taking part from across the country, and only 28 of the filmmakers were short-listed as finalists.

Mr Rosenberg said he hoped to use the prize money to fund his future film projects.

“Winning was very exciting and it will look great on my resume,” he said.

“It was good to see a variety of different short films and get ideas from like-minded people who are a similar age and have similar production budgets to me.”

2022 Empire Theatres Youth Bursary recipient Ben Rosenberg. Picture: Kevin Farmer

It marks the third time Mr Rosenberg has entered the competition where he previously won Best Script and Best Director in 2020 and 2021.

Locally, the senior high school student has made a name for himself in the industry, after producing films for the Empire Theatre, Toowoomba Choral Society and other organisations.

The Year 12 student has dreams of one day directing feature length films.

He plans to apply for the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television in Sydney, SAE Australia or Griffith University in Brisbane, to commence his studies next year.