PHILOMENA

The Virginia Film Festival announced the winners of its Audience and Programmer’s Awards for the 2013 festival. Earning top honors in the Audience Award category of Best Narrative Feature was PHILOMENA, the Stephen Frears directed drama starring Dame Judi Dench as a woman who was forced to give up her son for adoption by her Irish Catholic community decades earlier and joins forces with a BBC reporter, played by Steve Coogan, on a mission to find him.

The full list of 2013 VFF Audience Award winners includes:

Narrative Feature: PHILOMENA (Stephen Frears)

Narrative Short: AWAKENED EYES (Lainey Wood), also Runner Up in the VFF’s 2013 ACTION! High School Filmmaker Competition

Documentary Feature: CLAW (Brian Wimer and Billy Hunt)

Documentary Short: THE CREATIVE PROPOSITION (Gordon Quinn)

This year, Kielbasa and VFF Programmer Wesley Harris once again saluted their own “Best of Fest” picks with Programmer’s Award winners, including:

Narrative Feature: BLUE RUIN (Jeremy Saulnier)

Documentary Feature: A WILL FOR THE WOODS (Amy Browne, Tony Hale, Jeremy Kaplan, Brian Wilson)

Narrative Short: MIRACLE BOY (Jason Brown)

Documentary Short: RING PEOPLE (Alfredo Covelli)