Liz Sargent’s 'Take Me Home' and Giselle Bonilla’s 'The Musical' Win Top Prizes at 2nd PROOF Film Festival

Anna Sargent in Take Me Home by Liz Sargent ‘Courtesy of Sundance Institute.’

Anna Sargent in Take Me Home by Liz Sargent ‘Courtesy of Sundance Institute.’

Liz Sargent’s Take Me Home received the Grand Jury Prize and Giselle Bonilla’s The Musical received the Audience Choice Award at the 2nd edition of American Cinematheque’s PROOF Film Festival held at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles, California.

Additional winners included Ritvik Dhavale’s Hema, and Chris Capel’s Fishers of Men sharing the PROOF Film Festival’s Gold Award, Hanna Gray Organschi’s F*ck That Guy winning the Silver Award, and TUSK’s Ripe! taking the film festival’s Bronze Award. Lucy Porter had the winning pitch for her Silver Spoon project and came out on top in the PROOF Film Festival’s Pitch Deck Show & Tell.

American Cinematheque Film Programmer and Proof Film Festival Founder, Imani Davis, said, “It was exciting to see PROOF Film Festival continue to grow and develop in our second year. The filmmakers have been ecstatic about the experience. PROOF creates a platform for great work to find appreciative audiences, but perhaps more importantly, it is already becoming an event for these filmmakers to find solid footing as they take the next steps for their current projects, as well as sow the seeds for their future projects.”

Highlights of the festival included ShotDeck, the largest searchable cinematic image library, presenting a live Shot Talk with a cinematographer guest, hosted by founder Lawrence Sher, ASC. Antigravity Academy presented The Making of DÌDI (弟弟), with filmmaker Sean Wang and producers Josh Peters and Valerie Bush in person to discuss the making of the new hit indie film. Popular panel subjects; “Represented: A Conversation with Agents and Managers”, “Next Steps: From a Short to a Feature or Series”, and “Forging Your Own Path: Actor/Producers in Conversation” were highlights. PROOF also hosted the Los Angeles premiere of the festival hit feature film Sew Torn, which is adapted from the 2019 short film of the same name, directed by Freddy Macdonald.