Two of the year's top festivals for documentary film announced their award winners yesterday - nearly simultaneously on opposite sides of the US - with Silverdocs juries selecting Stephanie Wang-Breal's cross-cultural adoption film, WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU MOMMY), and Vadim Jendreyko's THE WOMAN WITH FIVE ELEPHANTS, a film about the translating of five great works by Dostoyefsky into German, for their US and World Competition Prizes, respectively, while a jury in Los Angeles chose J. Clay Tweel's MAKE BELIEVE, a competition film about young magicians, for its top prize and $50,000 grant.
LAFF will announce its Audience Award winner today, Silverdocs will reveal its on Monday.
The juries at Silverdocs handed out a awards in six categories on Saturday. Noticeably missing was Silverdocs' Music Documentary prize, which was apparently cut from this year's festival. Also cut was the amount of prize money for the winners - $5,000 instead of last year's $10,000.
Jeff Malmberg's festival favorite, MARWENCOL picked up the festival's fourth Cinematic Vision Award, while the Writers Guild Documentary Screenplay award went to Yael Hersonski's Hot Docs champ A FILM UNFINISHED.
Silverdocs' line-up of short films looked particularly impressive, and from that list, the shorts jury chose Andy Taylor Smith's THIS CHAIR IS NOT ME.
Full list of prize winners, including special jury prize winners, after the jump.
Los Angeles Film Festival
Grand Jury Prize
MAKE BELIEVE
Directed by J. Clay Tweel
Silverdocs Film Festival
Grand Jury Prize - US Feature
WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU, MOMMY)
Directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal
Special Jury Mentions - US Feature
THE KID GROWS UP
Directed by Doug Block
and
MY PERESTROIKA
Directed by Robin Hessman
Grand Jury Prize - World Feature
THE WOMAN WITH 5 ELEPHANTS
Directed by Vadim Jendreyko
Special Jury Mention - World Feature
STEAM OF LIFE
Directed by Joonas Berghall & Mika Hotakainen
Grand Jury Prize - Short Films
THIS CHAIR IS NOT ME
Directed by Andy Taylor Smith
Special Jury Mention - Short Films
BETWEEN DREAMS
Directed by Iris Olsson
and
THE POODLE TRAINER
Directed by Vance Malone
Cinematic Vision Award
MARWENCOL
Directed by Jeff Malmberg
WITNESS Award
BUDRUS
Directed by Julia Bacha
Writers Guild Documentary Screenplay Award
A FILM UNFINISHED
Directed by Yael Hersonski
i hope Aaron Schock's CIRCO picks up some award at either LAFF or SilverDocs. that film was breathtaking...
Posted by: Chris | June 27, 2010 at 02:36 PM
I haven't seen Circo but some friend told me about it so I must really watch it. I have heard that the storyline was interesting with a great casts.
Posted by: Mary | June 28, 2010 at 09:49 AM