AN ASPIRING director has won national recognition for a short film he hopes will open doors to the film-making industry.

Sing Lee, 22, could not believe his luck when his name was called out as winner in the Best Drama category at the National Student Film Awards, held at London South Bank University, for his film Flux.

As an illustration and animation student at Manchester Metropolitan University, Sing, originally of Bradley, Wrexham, has grand designs on becoming a fully fledged film-maker and is hopeful this accolade will lead to bigger and better things.

He said: “I thought I’d misheard when my name was called out and hadn’t even thought about making a speech.

“I’m aspiring to be a film maker and would really like to make a full feature film one day so it was great to win this award in front of some pretty influential people in the business.”

Sing, who studied at Yale College, developed a love of film and the arts at a young age and was destined to follow in the footsteps of his parents – his mum Jane is a painter and used to work for a Hong Kong film production company.

His now award-winning short film, which was nominated in four categories including Best Film, Best Performance and Best Musical Score, beat off stiff competition from more than 150 other entries from across the UK.

The film was heavily influenced by the music and cinematic style of the 1950s and he believes this era played a big part in setting the mood for Flux.

He added: “Flux is basically about a boy and a girl and the relationship they share but there’s a strong surrealist element to the film which puts a lot of power in the hands of the viewer.

“I really wanted to do something different and challenging and I hope that will have given me a head start for a career in film-making in the future.”