Tribeca Heineken Audience Award

SERIES: Major Film Festivals
 RUSH  Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart 

Just announced. The documentary RUSH: BEYOND THE LIGHTED STAGE, directed by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn is the Heineken Audience Award winner at the NYC Tribeca Film Festival. Rush is a Canadian rock band based in Toronto. They formed in 1968. They are still recording and performing. They will receive a $25,000 prize from Heineken. The award is chosen by attendees at the festival, either in person or those who purchased a Tribeca Film Virtual pass to view films online.

Second Place went to family favorite SNOWMEN, and in Third Place is the New York doc ARIAS with a TWIST: THE DOCUFANTASY. Together, these three films make for a diverse trio. All three will screen tomorrow (Sunday), plus other award winning films. Click title of this post for more on the films.

Sundance Festival Winners

SERIES: Major Film Festivals





The 2010 Sundance Film Festival (SFF) awards were presented Saturday, 30 January, by actor David Hyde Pierce. Yes, I know that was a week ago, but so many awards are being given at one time it is very hard on my staff - - me, myself, and I.



WINTER'S BONE

Debra Granik's WINTER'S BONE was the big winner in Park City, as it won both the dramatic competition Grand Jury prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in Park City. Earlier in the day, the gritty drama secured North American distribution through Roadside Attractions for release later this year.

The movie, about an unflinching Ozark Mountain girl trudging through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her missing father, was adapted from the Missouri-based author Daniel Woodrell's novel by Granik and Anne Rosellini. Rosellini and Alix Madigan, produced. Jonathan Scheuer and Shawn Simon executive produced. Granik's previous film, the 2004 Sundance entry DOWN TO THE BONE, won her a dramatic directing award

Here are the winners this year:



AUDIENCE AWARDS ~ ~

U.S. Dramatic – Josh Radnor, happythankyoumoreplease;
U.S. Documentary – Davis Guggenheim, WAITING FOR SUPERMAN;
World Cinema: Documentary – Lucy Walker, WASTE LAND;
World Cinema: Dramatic – Javier Fuentes-León (Peru), CONTRACORRIENTE.



JURY AWARDS ~ ~

Grand Jury Prize: U. S. Dramatic – Debra Granik, WINTER'S BONE;
Grand Jury Prize: U. S. Documentary - Sebastien Junger and Tim Hetherington, RESTREPO;

Jury Prize: World Cinema Dramatic – David Michôd, ANIMAL KINGDOM;
Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary – Mads Brügger, THE RED CHAPEL.



SPECIAL JURY AWARDS ~ ~

U.S. Dramatic – Mark Ruffalo, SYMPATHY FOR DELICIOUS;
U.S. Documentary – Josh Fox, GASLAND;
World Cinema Documentary – Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE;
World Dramatic Breakout Performance – Tatiana Maslany in GROWN UP MOVIE STAR.



OTHER SPECIAL ~ ~

Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize – Diane Bell, OBSELIDIA;
Best of NEXT – Todd Barnes and Brad Barnes, HOMEWRECKER.



RECOGNITION AWARDS ~ ~

U.S. Directing: Dramatic – Eric Mendelsohn, 3 BACKYARDS;

U.S. Directing: Documentary – Leon Gast, SMASH HIS CAMERA;
U.S. Waldo Salt Screenwriting – Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, WINTER'S BONE;
U.S. Documentary Editing– Penelope Falk, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK;
U.S. Excellence in Cinematography - Dramatic – Zak Mulligan, OBSELIDIA;
U.S. Excellence in Cinematography - Documentary – Kirsten Johnson, Laura Poitras, THE OATH;
World Cinema Directing: Dramatic – Juan Carlos Valdivia, SOUTHERN DISTRICT;
World Cinema Directing: Documentary – Christian Frei, SPACE TOURISTS;
World Cinema Screenwriting – Juan Carlos Valdivia, SOUTHERN DISTRICT;
World Cinema Documentary Editing– Joëlle Alexis, A FILM UNFINISHED;
World Cinema Cinematography - Dramatic – Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, THE MAN NEXT DOOR;

World Cinema Cinematography - Documentary – Kate McCullough and Michael Lavelle, HIS & HERS.

SHORT FILMS (announced earlier) ~ ~

Jury Prize in U.S. – DRUNK HISTORY;
International Jury Prize – THE SIX DOLLAR FIFTY MAN;
Honorable Mention – QUADRANGLE; DOCK ELLIS & THE LSD NO - NO;
ROB and VALENTYNA in SCOTLAND; YOUNG LOVE; BORN SWEET, and CAN WE TALK?

Also announced earlier, Slamdance Festival Awards, where the Grand Jury awards went to, Charles-Olivier Michaud's narrative film SNOW and ASHES, and Mark Claywell's documentary AMERICAN JIHADIST, plus the Sundance / NHK International Filmmakers Awards.

Read more about the awards. To visit the Festival's Website and read more there, plus access videos, click the title of this post.

Toronto Audience Award is PRECIOUS

PRECIOUS, the movie that won the top prize plus the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, was awarded the Cadillac Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) yesterday.

Other than recognizing some films, such as Canadian ones, this is the only major award the festival bestows as it is a non-competitive festival. This award is not only sponsored by Cadillac, it is considered the Cadillac of audience awards. Last year's winner was SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. Other notable winners include, AMERICAN BEAUTY and CHARIOTS OF FIRE.

Based on the novel 'Push' by a former Harlem educator who writes under the name of Sapphire, the movie was originally titled PUSH and won at Sundance under that name. However, it arrived at Toronto with a new name, PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE.

PRECIOUS was accepted at Toronto IFF with not much else than the strength of the novel and the wins at Sundance going for it, except it had some heavy hitters behind it. Among them is Lionsgate, the production / distribution company based in Vancouver, Canada, plus executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. Both Perry and Winfrey attended the Festival as chief cheerleaders.

PRECIOUS also has some other heavyweight names involved. It is directed by Lee Daniels, who produced MONSTERS BALL and directed SHADOWBOXER, with a screenplay adapted by Geoffrey Fletcher. It stars Mariah Carey and Mo'Nique in supporting roles, the latter winning the Sundance Special Jury Award for her portrayal of the abusive mother.

Both the comedienne Mo'Nique and singer Carey play against type. Carey is said to have worn no makeup in the movie. Mary J. Blige contributed a song to the soundtrack, and author Sapphire has a minor part.

The lead character is played by an unknown actress from Harlem, Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, who plays Clareece "Precious" Jones, a 16-year-old Harlem girl, an overweight illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child. Both pregnancies are the result of Precious having been raped by her father.

Precious is also repeatedly beaten by her mother. When she is invited to enroll in an alternative school she gains hope that her life can head in a new direction, but the road is not altogether the yellow brick road to Oz for which she has wished.

The movies LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and JUNO were each named "the little movie that could go all the way" after their wins at Sundance, and they did. PUSH, now called PRECIOUS, has been similarly annointed. With this important win at Toronto, it now is at the front of all the movies chugging uphill in quest of an Academy Award®.

The 47th New York Film Festival opens this Friday night, 25th, and PRECIOUS: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is this year's Centerpiece Film, one of the most prestigious spots in the Festival's lineup. The current questions are, "Will PRECIOUS gain more distance from the pack at the New York Film Festival?" and "With the new expanded 10-nominee format for Best Picture, will PRECIOUS make the list?"

I can't guess the NYFF prospect, but I can hazard a guess that the answer to the last question is, "Yes." The movie's tagline is: "Life is hard. Life is short. Life is painful. Life is rich. Life is....Precious." With a tagline like that, Oprah and the others, can it possibly miss?

Tribeca Festival Wraps

Heineken Audience Award, CITY ISLAND
The Heineken Audience Award was presented yesterday (3 May 2009) at the Tribeca Film Festival, NYC (TFFNYC). As the winner, CITY ISLAND received a $25,000 cash award. Ten diverse films were competing. The top three are screening at the Festival site in NYC as this post is being written.

The winner, CITY ISLAND, is a feature-length comedy written and directed by Raymond De Felitta (The Thing About My Folks, 05). Primary cast: Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Emily Mortimer, Alan Arkin, Steven Strait, and Ezra Miller.

The Rizzo family lives on a little-known island in the Bronx that is as quaint and sleepy as any New England town. But the Rizzos are not as picturesque as the island they inhabit, and like most dysfunctional families, they all stop at nothing to avoid the truth.

The Runner up is a documentary, RACING DREAMS, directed by Michael Curry, who won the 2005 Festival audience award for his documentary, STREET FIGHT. RACING DREAMS also won best documentary feature at this year's Festival. See post, 1 May, immediately below this one.

In third place we find MIDGETS Vs. MASCOTS, directed by Ron Carlson, which is described by festival commentators as a hilarious mocumentary. They go on to write, and I paraphrase, "It is one of the most-talked-about films at the Festival. . . The title alone [should] get you in the door, where little people (including, Gary Coleman and Jordan Prentice (IN BRUGES) battle Mascots, including 'Gator' and 'Taco' in events like milk-drinking, bull-riding, door-to-door-sales, and a whole ton more for a prize of one million dollars."

I must say, the title grabs me. However, I can wait for the DVD.

One more film deserves noting here, the one in fourth place. Japanese director Yojiro Takita's movie DEPARTURES (Okuribito), won the Oscar® as Best Foreign Language Film of 2008 at the Academy Awards® this year. It also won the Grand Prize at Montreal in 2008.

The Tokyo Orchestra disbands. A young cellist returns to his home in a rural town and to the family business. "The movie achieves a pleasingly droll blend of screwball-like humor with a moving story about reconciliation, acceptance, and finding one's place in the world, enhanced by a richly orchestrated score."

See a previous post, 28 February, for much more about DEPARTURES. Click the title of this post to see more about the 2009 top 10 audience picks, screening times, and previous winners.

Tribeca Festival Wraps with Cadillac Audience Award

The Cadillac Award: The Audience Choice for Best Feature Film at the Tribeca Film Festival (23 April - 4 May), New York City, was announced 4 May, and the winner is the documentary feature, WAR CHILD. It won over nine others, including PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL, which won the juried award for the best documentary feature.

First-time director C. Karim Chrobog received a cash prize of $25,000, the art award "Peripheral Drift Illusion" by Ryan McGinness, and a one-of-a-kind trophy to commemorate his achievement for WAR CHILD.

The true story in the doc: Emmanuel Jal raps his "Warchild," and tells his story of being conscripted as a soldier into the Sudanese People's Liberation Army when he was only eight years old. Now, as a veteran of a 20-year civil war between the Muslim North and Christian South, he has become, at 28, a rising hip-hop star.

Jal had declined other offers to film his story, but Chrobog offered him something else, "We want to use the story so you can give back and build a school." Last fall, Jal and Chrobog launched a foundation, Gua Africa, which is raising money to build two schools, one in southern Sudan and another outside of Nairobi, Kenya.

The top ten in the running for the award were:

1. Pray the Devil Back to Hell - won Best Documentary Feature.
2. War Child
3. Gotta Dance
4. Playing For Change: Peace Through Music
5. Man on Wire
6. Run For Your Life
7. Under Our Skin
8. Kicking It
9. The Wackness
10. Fighter

To view a still from WAR CHILD, read about other awards at Tribeca and other festivals, plus links, click the link for My Film Festivals Page on the right sidebar.

LINKS RELEVANT: Jal's MySpace / Read more about the film