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AUDIENCE AND JURY PRIZES ANNOUNCED FOR 2012 SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Posted Friday, January 27th, 2012 - Comments Off on AUDIENCE AND JURY PRIZES ANNOUNCED FOR 2012 SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 26, 2012

PARK CITY – January 26, 2012, The 18th Annual Slamdance Film Festival tonight announced the feature film and short film recipients of this year’s awards in the Audience, Grand Jury, and Sponsored Award categories. The award winners were announced at the annual Closing Night Awards Ceremony at the Treasure Mountain Inn.

As in previous years, juries of leading industry experts and esteemed filmmakers determine the Slamdance Jury Awards for Feature Narrative, Feature Documentary, and Short Film categories. Audience and Sponsored Awards, and the Spirit of Slamdance Award are also bestowed. The feature competition films in the Documentary and Narrative Programs are limited to first-time filmmakers working with production budgets less than $1 million.

“What a great way to end Slamdance’s 18th festival – by celebrating the films our excellent jurors and incredible audiences have awarded these emerging filmmakers,” said Peter Baxter, Co-Founder and President of Slamdance. “This years narrative and documentary competitions are stronger than ever, and these filmmakers represent the vanguard of true independent filmmaking.”

AUDIENCE AWARDS Audience Award for Feature Documentary: GETTING UP by Caskey Ebeling Audience Award for Feature Narrative: BINDLESTIFFS by Andrew Edison

GRAND JURY AWARDS – NARRATIVE

This year’s Slamdance Narrative Jury Prizes were selected by an esteemed panel of industry members: filmmakers Karin Chien and Jason McHugh, and film distribution executive Orly Ravid.

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Feature Narrative: WELCOME TO PINE HILL by Keith Miller, “for its poetic and emotionally honest depiction of one man’s final journey in life, crafted from a true spirit of humanity and community.”

Special Jury Award for Bold Originality: HEAVY GIRLS by Axel Ranisch, “for its joie de vivre, an

incredibly life-affirming film that is presented with a unique vision and an amazing cast.”

GRAND JURY AWARDS – DOCUMENTARY

The Documentary Jury—comprised of journalist Mark Bell, filmmakers Aaron Marshall and Kelly Williams—announced the awards with their statements:

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Feature Documentary: NO ASHES, NO PHOENIX by Jens Pfeifer, “for its adeptly piercing and cinematic look at a basketball team’s impassioned struggle not for glory, but to just avoid losing.”

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Short Documentary: THE PROFESSIONAL by Skylar Neilsen, for “an honest and natural portrayal of work-as-life, and the slowly disappearing craft of an American working man.”

GRAND JURY AWARDS – SHORT FILMS

This year’s Short Film Jury Prizes were selected by an esteemed panel of industry members: Iranian-American filmmaker/curator Ehsan Ghoreishi, writer / filmmaker Oona Mekas, and filmmaker and stage veteran Jack Truman.

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Animation: VENUS by Tor Fruergaard, “for its creative use of claymation characters to explore sexual adventure and its lighthearted, touching and memorable story.”

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Short Film: I AM JOHN WAYNE by Christina Choe, “for its unique storytelling, cinematography and performances, including the brilliant use of a real horse in an urban environment.”

Special Jury Prize for Experimental Short: SOLIPSIST by Andrew Huang, “for its unique blend of live action footage of the human body, puppetry and computer animation that creates a colorful and insightful fantasy world.”

Honorable Mention for Best Ensemble: I’M COMING OVER by Sam Handel, “for its extraordinary ensemble which creates a world that extends beyond the film’s 25 minute length.”

SPECIAL & SPONSORED AWARDS

Spirit of Slamdance Sparky Award: HEAVY GIRLS (Dicke Mädchen) – Axel Ranisch, Heiko Pinkowski, Anne Baeker. Awarded by the Class of 2012 Slamdance Filmmakers to the film team that best embodies the creative, independent, and entrepreneurial spirit of the festival, as well as showing exceptional talent as artists.

The Kodak Vision Award for Best Cinematography: FAITH, LOVE AND WHISKEY by Kristina Nikolova, “for shooting every single frame of this picture in a way that is not only pleasing to the eye, but also strongly supportive to the story being told.”

Panasonic AF100 Award for ‘The Five Flavors of Filmmaking’ Competition: JOSH GIBSON, director of the short film Kudzu Vine. Five filmmaking teams created one-minute films during the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival. The winning team exemplifies excellence in visual storytelling and receives a Panasonic AF100 Camera Package.

The 2012 Slamdance Film Festival Awards are sponsored by Kodak, Panasonic, Good Health and Pierce Law Group.

About Slamdance

As a year-round organization, Slamdance serves as a showcase for the discovery of new and emerging talent and is dedicated to the nurturing and development of new independent artists and their cinematic vision. The Slamdance 2012 Film Festival ran concurrently with the Sundance Film Festival, January 20-26, in Park City, Utah. Slamdance continues to live by its mantra: “By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers.” No other festival is fully programmed by filmmakers. Slamdance is proud to count among its alumni many notable writers and directors who first gained notice at the festival, including such cinematic luminaries as Christopher Nolan, Marc Forster, Jared Hess and Oren Peli. New filmmakers and writers today realize that Slamdance is a place to launch their careers.

Supporting the filmmakers beyond the festival and improving distribution opportunities for its films has become increasingly essential and at the core of what Slamdance stands for. After beginning an exclusive video on demand partnership with Microsoft in 2010, Slamdance has continued to expand its year-round platform and exhibition efforts in 2011 both theatrically and online. Last year Slamdance introduced a new distribution award for a best feature won by Superheroes and best short won by Hello Caller. The films combined for a twelve-city On The Road theatrical program that began in Fall 2011 as a collaboration between the filmmakers, sponsors and regional film organizations.

The 2012 Slamdance Film Festival is presented by Kodak. Major Sponsors this year include: The Directors Guild of America, Good Health Natural Foods and Monkeybars. Official Sponsors include: Panasonic, Pierce Law Group, OneBar USA, LUNA, Different By Design, Festival Genius, InFocus, Monster, BlueStar Coffee, Pacifico, Negra Modelo and Zevia. Slamdance is once again proud to partner with sponsors who share our unique vision and support emerging artists who are pushing the boundaries of independent filmmaking.

Additional information about the Slamdance Film Festival is available at www.slamdance.com Connect with Slamdance: http://twitter.com/slamdance and http://www.facebook.com/SlamdanceFilmFestival

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon