(L-R) Regina Robin (TGV Public Relations Manager), Marc Lourdes (Country Editor of Yahoo Malaysia), Sharifah Armani (Actress) and Norman Abdul Halim (Chief Executive Officer of KRU Studios).

Just recently over was the Yahoo-MAS Cili Padi Awards. As most of you know, the event is a short film competition where budding and talented filmmakers from Malaysia can submit their three-minute film on any topic to win the grand prize of RM 20,000, an internship at KRU Studios and limited run screenings of their short film at TGV Cinemas nationwide. 22-year-old duo Soo Wei Wen and Nicholas Chin walked away with the prize after the original winner, Muhammad Redha, was found to have plagiarised, wittingly or unwittingly, a Vimeo video titled "One Step Forward" that was uploaded two years ago.

As the short film competition is Yahoo Malaysia's newest baby, we decided to ask Marc Lourdes, who is one of the judges for the Cili Padi Awards, to elaborate about it. Marc talked about how Yahoo Malaysia first came up with the idea for the Cili Padi Awards, the obstacles faced by the team, the selection process, future plans for the short film competition and the unprecedented disqualification of their original winner.

We know that the short film competition is to create a platform to motivate young filmmakers to use their creative energies. How the idea for Yahoo-MAS Cili Padi Awards came about and why short films comprising of three minutes?
The idea for the Cili Padi Awards came about because we realised that the internet is a great medium for even complete unknowns to let their work be showcased to the world. Yahoo Malaysia, with its immense reach (roughly 8 million Malaysians on our network monthly), is an ideal facilitator for a project like this – and that has been proven by the sheer number of entries we received in our very first edition.

The reason we limited the entries to a three-minute length is because we felt it was the ideal length for a web video, based on consumption patterns and trends. Plus, we thought it would be a great challenge for a filmmaker to try and tell a great story in just three minutes.

Why the name Cili Padi Awards?
We wanted something distinctly Malaysian and Malaysians love eating cili padi. Cili padi packs a lot of punch despite its small size, not to mention that once you eat it you will never forget the experience. These characteristics are what we wanted to show in our competition. There is a lot of talent in Malaysians just waiting to be discovered, but what makes them a cili padi instead of just chilli is that their short film has to be something that will leave an impact on the audience that will stay with them long after they have watched it.

What were the obstacles faced in organizing the Yahoo-MAS Cili Padi Awards?
There were really no huge obstacles per se. We were blessed because we had a great team internally, as well as fantastic support from other Yahoo departments and above all, strong and committed partners in TGV Cinemas, Malaysia Airlines, KRU Studios and Sharifah Amani.

What was the exact process behind the selection of videos? Was there a team assembled to select the most interesting videos out of the 264 before they were viewed by the judges or the judges actually watched all 264 videos?
Of the total 263 videos submitted, 163 were approved. The others were rejected on the basis of length of videos, submissions after the deadline, etc. The initial 168 were whittled down to about 50 of the best videos by the Yahoo Malaysia team. These videos were then judged by our panel, which comprised of Sharifah Amani, Lisa Surihani, Lydia Gomez (Yahoo Malaysia deputy country editor) and myself. The judging criteria had four areas/categories: Creativity, Originality, Presentation and Content.

The judges and the winners of the Yahoo-MAS Cili Padi Awards.

When can we expect the next Yahoo-MAS Cili Padi Awards?
We hope to turn this into an annual event, and eventually the Malaysian and the online equivalent of the Oscars. The dream is for the Cili Padi Awards to become the benchmark by which the quality of short-form, web-based videos are judged and evaluated.

What are future plans for Yahoo-MAS Cili Padi Awards?
As with all things new, we will definitely look at how we can improve the overall performance of the event. We hope to come back just as short, but spicier than ever.

Will Yahoo continue working with different filmmakers and studios besides Sharifah Armani, Lisa Surihani and KRU?
We would love to continue the relationships we have built this year. However, as with all things, we will always need to bear in mind factors like schedules and availability. However, we are encouraged by the excitement with which our partners and judges have thrown themselves into this project. They are as passionate about Cili Padi as they are about anything to do with their love of filmmaking.

"Accepted" was disqualified due to similarities with "One Step Forward" but the prize has been awarded to Muhammad Redha in a ceremony. Will there be measures taken to ensure that incidents like this will be identified before the awards ceremony in the future?
The Internet being the massive entity it is; it's always going to be difficult to vet every single thing simply due to the fact that there's a lot of content out there. However, we will always take whatever measures we can to ensure that the best and most original content wins. It is disappointing to have to disqualify "Accepted" based on its similarity to "One Step Forward". However, it is good to see the online community policing itself and being proactive in getting in touch with us about the issue.

During our launch event in October, we mentioned that Cili Padi Awards is the democratisation of filmmaking. The feedback and the resulting actions that were taken is an affirmation of this idea of democracy in action, as well as an affirmation of our commitment towards fair play.

That's all we wanted to ask. Thank you Marc!
No problem.