A trio of UBD FASS students Azhar Khir, Aqil Kamarudin, and Shukri Sufri won the Dracula Digital 2023 Competition in the 5th Dracula International Film Festival which took place from 25 to 29 October in Brasov, Romania. This is the second time FASS DCI students grabbed the top prize with Euro 500 from this international smartphone filmmaking competition. Their award-winning short film, Séance, tells a story about a young man’s attempts to communicate with his deceased father.

The following are the comments made by the jury president of Dracula Digital 2023 Competition, Mr. Eugen Neagu, when he announced the winner on stage:

"With its use of cinematic elements, Séance stands out clearly compared to other short films in the Dracula Digital final competition.

The three key words are not simply introduced to the viewer, but visualised in a veiled way through the buildup of atmosphere and the characterisation of characters. The short film has a fluid content in a dynamic flow enhanced by cinematic techniques. Unanimously with the maximum votes from all four jury members, the winner of Dracula Digital 2023 is the short film Séance. The choice of the jury is a praise for trying everything cinematically to create a professional product through competitiveness."

Dracula Digital is a worldwide smartphone short film competition open to contestants aged 16 to 29, and is also one of the four official competitions in Dracula Film Festival. After the three secret words for the final competition were revealed at the opening ceremony of the festival on 25 October 2023, a total of eight groups of competitors had to use ‘Portrait’, ‘Testament’ and ‘Candle’ to make a three-minute short film in mystery, horror, or fantasy genres using a smartphone camera within three days, and then upload it to YouTube to be judged by a jury comprised of four professional filmmakers and academics.

Dr. Yong Liu from UBD attended the opening ceremony of the festival and announced the three keys for this year’s Dracula Digital Competition, followed by a screening of his documentary, A Journey to Brasov (9 min., 2022), which tells the story of three UBD students visiting Brasov, Romania and teaming up with three Romanian students from the University of Transylvania at Brasov to compete in the Dracula Digital 2022 Competition. The short film was screened during the opening night of the festival, which marked the film's European premiere.

Séance premiered in Brunei on a big screen in One City Cineplex on Thursday 16th November as the opening short film in the 6th PRISM UBD Short Film Festival Opening Screening, followed by a three-week online screening along with 29 competition finalists of the 6th PRISM, on Progresif Media from Monday 20th November to Wednesday 6th December, 2023.