NARRATIVE COMPETITION FEATURE JURY AWARD FOR NARRATIVE FEATURE: ^ Luck directed by Peter Wellington. Produced by Jennifer Weiss and Simone Urdl. ^ Set in the early 1970s, this film takes us into the world of a group of young, free-spirited underachievers who enjoy a good bet. A bit lost, and paralyzed by his own obsession with luck and destiny, one of the group members wonders if he’s lucky enough to win Margaret, the girl of his dreams. It seems that luck is not on his side. Or is it?
SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR NARRATIVE FEATURE: ^ “Mind the Gap” directed by Eric Schaeffer. Produced by Chip Hourihan, Robert Kravitz, Terence Michael, and Eric Shaeffer. ^ Five seemingly unrelated adults decide to take huge risks with their lives, searching for the happiness constantly eluding them.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE JURY AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: ^ “A Hard Straight” directed by Goro Toshima. Produced by Goro Toshima, Lindsay Sablosky. ^ A Hard Straight follows 3 parolees in their post-prison lives; enjoying their newfound freedom, as well as negotiating the difficulties of re-entering an uncaring and sometimes hostile society.
SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: ^ Witches In Exile directed by Allison Berg. Produced by Allison Berg, co-produced by: Frank Keraudren. ^ In Ghana, women accused of witchcraft are torn from their families and banished to witch villages. Synopsis: “Witches in Exile” follows these accused women through their daily struggle to survive in the Kukuo Witches Camp. As government agencies attempt to abolish this age-old tradition, these women find themselves caught between their society’s deeply-rooted beliefs and its drive toward modernization.
COMPETITION SHORTS JURY AWARD: ^ “Gretchen and The Night Danger” directed by Steve Collins. Produced by Riley Malone. ^ An awkward teenager wrestles with whether or not to let her boyfriend go up her shirt.
SPECIAL JURY AWARD: ^ “9:30” directed by Mun Chee Yong. Produced by Ryan Sturz and Brett Henenberg. ^ 9:30 is a story about a man¹s intense longing and his futile attempt to put it to an end. Chan Kin Fai flies to Los Angeles from Singapore to forget the person he loves. He doesn¹t manage to forget. He ends up calling his love everyday at 9:30 Singapore Time.
ANIMATED SHORT JURY AWARD FOR BEST ANIMATED SHORT: ^ “Pan With Us” directed and produced by David Russo. ^ A frenetic and poetic flight on the wings of classic Greek mythology.
SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR ANIMATED SHORT: ^ “Subsidized Fate” directed and produced by Lance Myers. ^ A man is instructed to burglarize another man’s house by mysteriously placed commercial messages. Are these signs in his head or has capitalism become an omnipotent force?
EXPERIMENTAL SHORT JURY AWARD FOR BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT: ^ “dissolve” directed by Aaron Valdez. ^ A meditative collage of hundreds of dissolves cut directly from old 16mm educational films and reassembled to form an abstract look at our own impermanence.
SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR EXPERIMENTAL SHORT: ^ “Roothold” produced by Eric Patrick. ^ Roothold is a divination film that speculates on Gene Rowley; a woman pictured on an abandoned gravestone in Port Arthur, TX.
MUSIC VIDEO JURY AWARD FOR BEST MUSIC VIDEO: ^ 54 Seconds – “Better?” directed by Tracie Laymon. Produced by Spencer Gibb, Karen Ramirez and Trevor Nelson. ^ In the video for the band 54 Seconds, a depressed young woman takes advantage of the only opportunity she sees to make her life better.
SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR MUSIC VIDEO: ^ Dizzee Rascal – “Fix Up, Look Sharp” directed by Ruben Fleischer. Produced by Miwa Okamura.
AUDIENCE AWARDS
LONE STAR STATES: ^ “Mojados : Through The Night” directed and produced by Tommy Davis. ^ Director Tommy Davis tags along with four migrants from a small village in Mexico as they leave their families and embark on a 120 mile trek across the deserts of Texas, attempting to evade the U.S. Border Patrol. They must overcome dehydration, hypothermia and come face to face with death. ^ Runner Up: “A Few Good Dykes” directed and produced by Mocha Jean Herrup. ^ What’s behind the desire to make it in the D**e Uniform Corps? Is it the masculinity? The control? The performance? The muscles and the shiny buttons? Go behind the scenes to see the surprising, endearing and sometimes troubling reasons why women of the Corps want to wear the uniform and belong to this cult of masculinity.
EMERGING VISIONS: “The Naked Feminist” directed by Louisa Achille. Produced by Louisa Achille, co-produced by Stephen Kijak. ^ This film challenges the mythology surrounding women in the porn industry head-on, through a series of candid interviews with porn stars, academics, and feminists. The film seeks to strip away the ideological straitjacket surrounding the decades old “porn versus feminist” debate.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: A League of Ordinary Gentlemen directed by Christopher Browne. Produced by Wilhelmus Bryan and Alex H. Browne. ^ Four professional bowlers’ lives are interrupted when their league is purchased by a trio of Microsoft programmers who hire a Nike marketing guru to turn professional bowling into the next ‘second tier sports franchise.’
NARRATIVE FEATURE: “Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story” directed by Brant Sersen. Produced by Dominic Amatore, Allen Bain, Seth Eisman, Peter Gelles, Darren Goldberg, Chris Lechler, Jesse Scolaro, Brant Sersen, and Brian Steinberg. ^ Banned from paintball for ten years, Bobby Dukes, the former Hudson Valley Champ, has returned to reclaim his title.
BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) AWARD (for Competition Shorts 15 minutes or under): ^ “Underground” directed by Aimee Lagos and Kristin Dehnert. Produced by Aimee Lagos, Kristin Dehnert, Estee Chandler, and Joanne Duray. ^ Runners Up (in order): ^ “The Climactic Death of Dark Ninja” directed by Peter Craig. Produced by Rachel Craig. ^ A frazzled auteur struggles to keep his lead actor, avoid heatstroke and weather creative differences, while attempting to shoot his movie’s climactic final scene. A mannequin, four ninjas and a five year-old lost in the woods are not making it any easier. ^ “We Have Decided Not To Die” directed by Daniel Askill. Produced by Christopher Seeto and Daniel Askill. ^ Three Rituals. Three Figures. Three modern day journeys of transcendence. ^ “Excursion” directed by Cris Jones. Produced by Cris Jones and Jessica Brookman. ^ You wake up. That`s how it always starts. But what next? What do you do? What do you have for breakfast? Burn your house. Quit your job. Never trust a refrigerator. Set off the smoke alarms. Turn on the gas. Get on the goddam boat. Peace.
For more info, visit the SXSW website.
