Ideally you're reading this on the way home from the second annual First Boards Awards, having come away from the new talent showcase with a warm feeling in your cockular region and an optimistic glow about the future of commercial production.

Once again, the First Boards Awards proved an overwhelmingly worthwhile exercise and not only because it draws attention to our magazine. The array of talent showcased in the international entries was formidable (across all categories except music -- there just weren't enough entries) and most of the judges were excited about the line-up of talent and curious to find out more about some of the work they saw.

Those responsible for judging the directors' reels had the biggest job and I thank those who devoted the significant amount of time necessary to complete this task. The judges' feedback was fun to read; it was interesting to see how different judges gushed over different directors -- unsung (for now) talents with strong work and flashes of brilliance. We'll have more on some of these other First Boards entrants in future issues of Boards. All the judges, however, concurred on the matter of the winner, Sweden's Jens Jonsson, especially in the case of his affecting, wordless short film The Execution.

Jonsson shot the project with the help of a scholarship windfall which provided film stock and use of a camera. The director was inspired by a documentary he had seen about executions in Central America and the importance of victim anonymity in carrying out these acts. The Execution looks at the impact of looking one's victim in the face.

Jonsson deliberately chose a pared-down, no-dialog approach to the film, even to the point of forsaking conventional editing gear and cutting the film on a Steenbeck. The result won the international short film class at the Stockholm Film Festival, prompted one judge to remark: "I didn't know Bergman had only been directing for two years," and garnered lavish kudos from all the First Boards judges.

Among those judges who contributed efforts to at least one category:

Ira Antelis, Leo Burnett's Music Aid, Chicago

David Baxter, Panic & Bob, Toronto

Yvonne Chalkley, AMV/BBDO, London

Court Crandall, Ground Zero, LA

Bob Hest, Hest & Kramer, Minneapolis

David How, Professor of Classical Animation, Sheridan College, Oakville

Adam Pertofsky, Rock, Paper, Scissors, LA

Owen Plotkin, Editing Concepts, New York

Greg Popp, DDB, Chicago

Alex Seiden, Cyclotron, New York

Adam Shaheen, Cuppa Coffee Animation, Toronto

Don Siudmak, Hell's Kitchen, New York

Chris Staples, ReThink, Vancouver

Sandy Hunter, Boards magazine Toronto

Sam Sneade, Sam Sneade Editorial, London

Teressa Iezzi

Editor