Timed to coincide with World Intellectual Property Day, the Canadian Film Centre on Tuesday awarded Toronto filmmaker Ace Billet (pictured) a $10,000 cheque as its Reel Challenge content winner for his short film Big Gulp.

Did we say short? Billet’s 21-second film was cited by the CFC for underlining how piracy harms creative content makers.

“It’s stealing. It’s hurting creators. It makes the dream of becoming an artist a nightmare,” Billet said in a statement.

“The spot I created is saying that online piracy sucks: it sucks the livelihood of thousands of workers in the Canadian film industry,” he added.

The REEL Challenge competition asks filmmakers to produce a short film about creators’ rights and copyright protection from a creator’s perspective.

The second prize winner is Jason James of Vancouver, who received $3,000 for his short film Bread, while third prize and $2,000 went to Gina Bucci of Toronto her short film The Corruption of an Innocent Baby Girl Genius.

“The digital age brings extraordinary opportunities, yet at the same time, unprecedented challenges with respect to protecting content and creators’ rights,” CFC executive director Slawko Klymkiw said of the awareness-raising exercise for copyright protection for content creators.

All three winning entries are being streamed at www.thereelchallenge.ca.
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