Local creatives put Melbourne filmmaking front and centre with wins at the TAC Split Second film competition.
TAC’s Split Second film competition winners Stacey Park and Shane Senanayake have given Melbourne filmmakers a solid reason to celebrate this week.
Melbourne-based creatives took out top honours at the Split Second film competition, an annual road safety filmmaking initiative backed by the Victorian government and TAC. Focus sits firmly on young Victorian storytellers, and this year’s results underline just how strong the local scene is right now. Park and Senanayake stood out for ideas that felt inventive, sharp and tuned into how people actually think and behave on the road.
TAC Split Second film competition – Melbourne winners
- Screening period: February 2025
- Location: Victoria-wide screenings
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Split Second film competition is open to Victorian creatives aged 18 to 30, asking for bold concepts that speak directly to young drivers. Winning comes with a $5,000 dollar cash prize each, plus a $45,000 production budget to turn concepts into fully realised short films. Topics this year centre on low-level speeding and seatbelt use, two areas still causing serious harm across Victorian roads.
Stacey Park’s Keep the Tempo uses Korean drumming as the backbone of its storytelling, leaning into precision, rhythm and discipline as a visual metaphor for road safety. Film shows how even a subtle increase in speed can knock the entire rhythm out of sync.
Shane Senanayake’s Unusual Behaviours takes a sharply different approach, using humour and social absurdity to unpack the flawed logic behind not wearing a seatbelt. Concept imagines growing up in a town where nobody wears pants, and how quickly that strange behaviour starts to feel normal when everyone around you accepts it.
Beyond the prize money, winners receive mentorship from production heavyweights The Taboo Group and Truce Films. Support focuses on script development and production ahead of public screenings scheduled for February 2025.
For emerging filmmakers, access to that level of guidance can be a genuine game-changer, helping bridge the gap between grassroots ideas and large-scale audiences.
Road safety messaging often struggles to cut through, but Split Second film competition keeps the focus on creativity first. Giving young Melbourne filmmakers room to experiment has resulted in work that feels culturally aware, visually engaging and locally grounded.
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