Elton John’s The Cut Winners Revealed

Think back to December and you might remember The Cut competition that offered young filmmakers the chance to imagine music videos to three of Elton John’s beloved ballads? Today at the Cannes Film Festival, we can reveal who’s behind creating these winning promos.

For the first time, Rocket Man, Tiny Dancer and Bennie & the Jets have official visuals to accompany their sound, thanks to the AQKA, Pulse Films and YouTube-led initiative that marks Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s 50^th year of writing together.

Rocket Man; Majid Adin:

Majid Adin won the animation category with his inspiring autobiographical interpretation of Rocket Man. His idea was developed in partnership with BlinkInk’s animation director Stephen McNally and reveals his experiences as an Iranian refugee, recapping his epic journey to Europe and capturing the loneliness of the trip. But the spot ends hopefully and reflects Adin’s ascent to becoming an accepted artist.

He says, “This experience is like a dream come true. It's been a wonderful project to work on because it has given us the possibility to tell a story of empathy and compassion that should resound universally and also because we've had the opportunity to put into pictures such an iconic song.”

Bennie & The Jets; Jack Whiteley and Laura Brownhill:

Jack Whiteley and Laura Brownhill’s collaboration on Bennie and the Jets stole the jury’s hearts. The monochrome and retro-futuristic spot was inspired by Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis, with evocative and unusual dancing that fused their filmmaking, theatre and live performance backgrounds and evokes moves from American choreographer Busby Berkeley.

Tiny Dancer; Max Weiland:

While Max Weiland directed the winning Tiny Dancer promo, which took home the live action prize for his depiction of LA’s inhabitants. “We see L.A through the eyes of its people, their disparate lives unified momentarily as they listen to Tiny Dancer,” he says. “It is their shared soliloquy. It connects their stories as we feel their struggle and their joy.”

All three promos premiered at Cannes today, while Elton John and Bernie Taupin talked about the contest, in a session moderated by Spike Lee.

“The future of creativity is clearly collaborative, fusing art and technology and it’s been fantastic to open up our work to the next generation of creative talent and to share that process with the world on YouTube,” says Elton John.

“We’re looking forward to people binge-watching the inspirations videos, judging day roundup and forthcoming behind the scenes films to get a full sense of the outstanding creativity that has driven this project from the outset,” says Pulse’s EP Stephen Whelan.

Each of the winners took home $10,000 to encourage them to continue creating; so hopefully it’s only the beginning for these burgeoning filmmakers. Congrats!