Award winners and presenters, above
After the last screening at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, MLFF winners were announced at a lively after-party held in town at the Sierra Events Center. We were gratified to have chosen many of the winners among our own festival favorites.
Shorts, which were uniformly excellent, received special mentions as well as official winners:
Award winner narrative Shadow Animals director Jerry Carlson and shorts awards presenters
Special mention for director of Nevada, above, right – Emily Ann
- ominious and dark, In a Month received a special mention for its dystopian vision of darkness and madness
- painterly in style and ambiguous in interpretation, Babies, filmed in the Palestinian Territories outside Jerusulem, also received a special mention
- narrative grand jury shorts winner went to Shadow Animals, the gorgeous horror-laced take on social mores from Sweden
- Nevada, the utterly charming claymation film about a couple and their potential baby, took special mention in the animated category.
- Grand jury winner in animation: Cocoon, Cocoon, a fresh take on caterpillars and butterflies with visually lush claymation and stop-action animation.
- Grand jury award for best doc short: David and the Kingdom, a beautiful and moving story of a now-Zen-like former hunter. The film had its world premiere at the festival. Writer/director Brian Paccione said “I can’t think of a better place to premiere the film, because our subject, David, would look at the mountains and have a lot to say. “
Cocoon, Cocoon director Ori Goldberg, above; director of David and the Kingdom, Brian Paccione, below.
Feature-length documentary film awards:
- Jury award for best documentary feature went to the fast-paced thriller of a doc, White Tide. “We made a film about a guy who looked for buried treasure. And isn’t that what we do as filmmakers? Search for buried treasure?” asked director Theo Love who added “I didn’t think we would win! The first day of shooting, the guy we were supposed to shoot didn’t show up and we shot two hours of turtles humping with Panavision lenses,” he laughed.
- A special mention in the doc feature category went to Buddha.mov
- Bravery Award for documentary feature: Minding the Gap, a harrowing and insightful look at three skateboarding friends growing up, grown up, and dealing with a cycle of familial and spousal abuse.
- Audience Award: Crime + Punishment, a thoroughly exacting and riveting story of police corruption.
Above, doc jurors with White Tide winners; center, director Theo Love
Below, presenter Flula Borg with Crime + Punishment winner and festival director Shira Dubrovner
Feature length international winners:
- special mention to the melancholic vampire feature from Finland, Vidar the Vampire
- jury award: the haunting Polish film about the end times and family life, Tower. A Bright Day.
Above, presenter Vincent Spano with Vidar the Vampire winner
English-language narative winners:
- Jury award to the “film about empathy and being better to each other out there in the real world, according to director Gus Krieger, the poetic My Name is Myeshia.
- Audience Award: Rock Steady Row, the exuberant university-set, stolen-bike-ring contemporary Western. Writer Bomani J. Story said “This is all kind of amazing considering this all stemmed from me getting my bike stolen in college.” Presenter Flula Borg joked “I was in a film that won this two years ago, so there’s a nice symmetry to this.” Note: Borg’s film, then Buddymoon, now HoneyBuddies is an hilarious must-see.
Above, juror with My Name is Myeshia winners
Above, presenter Flula Borg, left, with crew and lead actor from Rock Steady Row
No award given but our own special mention should be made for the delicious small bites catering from Dan Molnar, and the Orson the Bear sculpted wooden awards, created by carver Josh Slater at Bear in Mind carvings, whom festival director Shira Dubrovner terms “the best.”
Founder and director Dubrovner and programmer Paul Sbrizzi created an absolutely terrific 4th year of MLFF – here’s to 40 more.
The full list of Juried and Audience Awards is below:
- Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature, with a $1,000 cash prize, $10,000 Panavision Camera Rental Grant and $10,000 Light Iron Post Production Package, goes to My Name Is Myeisha.
- Jury Award for Best International Feature, with a $500 cash prize, goes to Tower. A Bright Day.
- Special Mention goes to writer, director, actor Thomas Aske Berg for his performance in Vidar the Vampire.
- Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature, with a $1,000 cash prize, goes to White Tide.
- Special Mention goes to Buddha.mov.
- Jury Award for Best Narrative Short, with a $500 cash prize and $5,000 VER Rental Grant, goes to Shadow Animals.
- Special Mentions go to Babies and In A Month.
- Jury Award for Best Documentary Short, with a $500 cash prize, goes to David and The Kingdom.
- Jury Award for Best Animation Short, with a $500 cash prize, goes to Cocoon, Cocoon.
- Special Mention goes to Nevada.
- Special Jury Award for Bravery, with a $500 cash prize, goes to Minding the Gap.
- Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, with a $1,000 cash prize and $5,000 Panavision Camera Rental Grant, goes to Rock Steady Row.
- Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, with $1,000 cash prize, goes to Crime + Punishment.
Narrative Features Jury: Tim Rhys (MovieMaker Magazine), Nicole Sperling (Vanity Fair) and Rachel Winter (Producer).
Documentary Features Jury: Allison Amon (EVP Sales & Development, Bullitt), Lindsey Bahr (Associated Press) and Peter Baxter (Filmmaker; President/Co-Founder, Slamdance).
International Features Jury: Shalini Dore (Variety), Alonso Duralde (TheWrap) and Vincent Spano (Actor).
Shorts Jury: Ana Souza (Sundance Film Festival) and Scenery Samundra (Tru Thoughts, NTS Radio).
- Genie Davis; photos: Jack Burke