RTS Student Awards

The awards celebrate the best of student television talent, showcasing undergraduate and postgraduate films from 23 universities.

The films were awarded in the categories Animation, Comedy & Entertainment, Drama, Factual, News and Short Form, as well as the craft skills categories Camerawork, Editing, Production Design, Sound and Writing. 

​Click here to read the full list of winners

Addressing the students and mentors, RTS Education Chair Graeme Thompson said: “You are part of a thriving project, which is making a difference to representation in the TV and screen industry. We fervently believe that we reach the parts that others in the industry can’t reach – and that’s fantastic for the diversity of our industry.”

Across six categories, the RTS Student Awards celebrate the best audiovisual work created by students with both an undergraduate and postgraduate winner awarded in each category across Animation, Comedy & Entertainment, Drama, Factual, News and Short Form.

This year, the winning entries came from students at 12 universities and institutions across the UK. Students from the National Film and Television School led the way with five wins, closely followed by the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Dun Laoghaire with four wins and the University of Sunderland with three.

Across six categories, 23 universities have received nominations having won at their respective regional RTS Student Awards earlier this year.

Now in its 24th year, the prestigious awards will be presented at a ceremony hosted by Radio 1 presenters Matt Edmondson and Mollie King on Friday 28th of June at the BFI Southbank. The RTS Student Awards celebrates the best audiovisual work created by students with an undergraduate and postgraduate winner both awarded in each category across Animation, Comedy & Entertainment, Drama, Factual, News and Short Form.

Students from the Glasgow arts academy took home the Drama award for What Separates Us From the Beast and triumphed in four of the Craft Skills categories, including the new Writing prize, which was won by Robin Boreham for Incoming Tide.

The University of Glasgow entered the awards for the first time and scooped the Short Form prize for War Museum. Edinburgh College of Art (Animation), Glasgow Clyde College (Comedy and Entertainment and Craft Skills – Editing) and the University of Stirling (Factual) won the other awards.

“The standard of entries for 2019 was very high – several jurors said that you could ‘broadcast that tomorrow’ about many of the films we watched,”  said Aradhna Tayal, the Chair of the awards.

“Many seized the opportunity to use their work as a means of challenging and addressing real-life, taboo topics,” she added. “The jurors were in agreement that the entries this year demonstrated the ways in which art can be both important and meaningful.”