YOUNG film makers were recognised on the silver screen when the winner of the Basingstoke Through The Lens video competition was announced.

Organised by Destination Basingstoke, the competition was sponsored by Sony, along with support from Red Carpet Screenings, Basingstoke Festival and Basingstoke Consortium.

The aim of the competition was to encourage young people to show off their creativity by producing a short video showcasing the positive attributes of Basingstoke through a young person’s eyes.

The winning video was produced by Testbourne Community School students Chloe Hayward 15, and her sister Zara, 13, with Beth Larkin 13, and her older sister May, who is a student at Queen Mary’s College. Their video will be used to promote Basingstoke and the Basingstoke Festival.

Runner-up Nathan Sullivan, 15, from The King’s School, was also recognised for his achievement.

Among those attending the screening of the winning video at the Viables offices of Sony Professional Solutions Europe was Basingstoke MP and Culture Secretary Maria Miller and Basingstoke and Deane Mayor Councillor Martin Biermann and his wife Chansopha.

Neil Pilling, project management office manager, at Sony Professional Solutions Europe, said: “We are really passionate about encouraging young people to get involved in arts and entertainment and everyone who entered this competition did a fantastic job.

“However there can only be one winner and our congratulations go to Beth, May, Chloe and Zara who captured the essence of summer in Basingstoke in a fun and imaginative way.”

Mrs Miller added: “It’s great to see a multi-national company like Sony, which is a long-standing employer in Basingstoke, working together with a local company Destination Basingstoke and other local partners, to encourage creativity and bring together business with the community and our schools.”

Echoing Mrs Miller’s sentiment, Destination Basingstoke’s Jane Staff said: “We were very impressed by the quality of all of the entries. It really shows what a great pool of film making talent we have here.

“We are really grateful to everyone who sent their films in to us – we had a great time reviewing them all.”

All five students received prizes from Sony and their schools received a video recorder as a prize as well.