Meet Ayra and Soha, the Sisters Who Won the Childnet International Film Competition
The Childnet International competition is in its third year. This year’s theme, “Time to Talk,” focused on how people can support each other online. (You can learn more about the competition here.)
Childnet International is a registered UK charity that was founded in 1995 with the goal of making the internet a safe place for children and young people. The film competition began in 2010 and focused on schools and youth groups based in the United Kingdom. Then, in 2021, Childnet broadened the competition to include an international category open to students from schools across the globe.
In 2021, the first year of the competition, the theme was “Separating Fact From Fiction: Finding Trustworthy Information Online.” That’s where Ayra and Soha come in. These two sisters, from Jumeirah English Speaking School in Dubai, won the competition with their film Fake vs. Real, deploying stop-motion animation, clever editing, and fake websites that claim to have concrete proof of a UFO sighting.
“It was a new opportunity that we hadn’t really heard of before, and we just decided to go for it because, why not?” says Ayra.
Going for it included learning a lot—Ayra and Soha had to learn how to build their own website, film and edit their work, sound design, create graphics, and more.
“We learned a lot of like different features of new apps, which was really cool,” Soha says. “We had to make sure that we understood it because if we don’t get it, then who else would?”
“The girls are role models for their classmates,” says their teacher, David Murphy. “They came in and showed me the idea actually of creating their own website with the fake information and using it as that inspiration for their story. That was a really inspiring and brilliant moment as their teacher.”
We spoke with Ayra, Soha, and David about their film, what it’s like working with your sister, and why making a movie might be the best class project there is.
And check out Ayra and Soha’s winning film here:
