The 2019 Byron Bay Film Festival (BBFF) came to a close with the announcement of the winners of the BBFF Best Film Awards. The winner of both Best Film and Best Documentary was the powerful and enlightening In My Blood It Runs which offers a rare and compelling insight into the life of 10-year-old Arrente and Garrawa boy, Dujuan.
Byron Bay Film Festival will close with The Cave, the film that tells a story that will be familiar to nearly everyone – the 2018 rescue of the Wild Boars football team from an underground cave in Northern Thailand, where they had been trapped by floodwaters caused by early monsoon rains.
Measure for Measure by director Paul Ireland will open this year’s 2019 Byron Bay Film Festival. Ireland’s re-imaging of the William Shakespeare “problem” play Measure for Measure is brought up to date, darkened, and set in Melbourne’s gritty underbelly, where ice, vice and inter-racial rivalries make for a tense urban landscape, with police pay-offs and violence the tactics of first resort.
Woman at War[/caption]
Woman at War, the Cannes award-winning follow-up to Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson’s Of Horses and Men, took both Best Dramatic Feature and Best Film at the 12th Byron Bay Film Festival. The film follows a 50-year-old independent woman and passionate environmental activist who secretly wages a one-woman war on the local aluminum industry. Woman at War was selected as Iceland’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFxz4oNfBV0
Jirga, a redemption tale set in Afghanistan, won the Best Byron Film – the Locals Award, for its director, Bangalow-based Benjamin Gilmour.
The film which was in the spotlight at the Festival’s closing gala, Sharkwater: Extinction, won BBFF2018’s Best Environmental Film Award. The film was the last work by the late shark conservationist Rob Stewart, who was well known and widely loved in Byron Shire and along the North Coast.
In honor of the work that Rob Stewart achieved, Ms Skippon-Volke announced that from 2019 the award would be known as the Rob Stewart Best Environmental Film Award – giving further gravitas to the importance of recognizing Environmental Films and the strong impact they have in changing minds and behavior.
An audience favorite, Backtrack Boys, set in Armidale, won the festival’s Best Documentary Award, beating four international nominees and the Taree-based autobiographical doco Teach A Man to Fish, made by Grant Leigh Saunders.
The award for Best Music Documentary went to Michael Franti’s Stay Human, which opened the festival and set its informal theme of nurturing hope over cynicism. Best Surf Film went to Big Wata, set in Sierra Leone; Best Animation went to the French short Bavure; and the Best Cinematography Award went to Cielo for its entrancing photography of the sky above Chile’s Atacama desert.
The Best Young Australian Filmmaker Award went to Melbourne-based Greta Nash for her film The Locker Room.
The festival had another trophy added to its 2018 awards list – an Encouragement Prize sponsored by Canon, gifting a professional camera to a deserving Young Australian filmmaker. This year’s prize went to brothers Jay and Shaun Perry, for their work creating their short film The Intentions of F Scott Fitzgerald.
Byron Shire band Parcels took home the Best Music Video Award for their film, Tied Up Right Now, and the coveted InteractiveVR award was awarded to a unique Virtual Reality Music Video Experience – Chorus.
One Less God[/caption]
One Less God, which tells the personal stories of Taj Mahal Palace hotel guests and staff caught up in the terrorist attack in 2008, took the Best Film Award at the 11th Byron Bay Film Festival.
“The film, though gruelling, had been an “absolute hit” with audiences, “sparking debate, passionate commentary and heartfelt appreciation”, said Festival Director J’aimee Skippon-Volke.
Other nominations for Best Film included An American in Texas, City of Joy, Loving Vincent, and the Closing Gala feature Rumble: the Indians Who Rocked the World.
This weekend, the 8th Byron Bay International Film Festival in Byron Bay, Australia, came to a close, and announced the awarding winning films and filmmakers. Opening Night’s film, WHEN MY SORROW DIED: THE LEGEND OF ARMEN RA & THE THEREMIN, took two of the most coveted awards, Best Film and Best Documentary. It’s subject, master theremin player Armen Ra, attending from Los Angeles said, “I was honestly really surprised and grateful and humbled to win these awards. This town has shown us so much love that it’s going to be very hard to leave; however, I will return!”
“I think we won these awards because the people of Byron Bay resonated with the message we’re trying to get across in their own ways: embracing and celebrating individuality”.
The 8th Byron Bay international Film Festival awards were announced as follows:
BBFF Best Film: When My Sorrow Died: The Legend Of Armen Ra & The Theremin (USA), Director, Robert Nazar Arjoyan
BBFF Best Dramatic Feature: The Deflowering Of Eva Van End (Netherlands), Director, Michiel ten Horn
BBFF Best Documentary: When My Sorrow Died: The Legend Of Armen Ra & The Theremin (USA), Director, Robert Nazar Arjoyan
Screenzone International Documentary Prize: Gore Vidal: The United States Of Amnesia (USA), Director Nicholas D. Wrathall
BBFF Best Surf Film: OUT In The Line-up (Australia), Director Ian W. Thompson
BBFF Young Australian Filmmaker Of The Year: Director former Tropfest Winner, Genevieve Clay-Smith for The Interviewer (Australia)
The Echo Best Byron Film: Tied between 2 Degrees (Australia) Director Jeff Canin and Burra Jurra (Australia) Director Juliet Carrington.
The Byron At Byron Best Environmental Film: Gasland Part II (USA),Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Director, Josh Fox.
Fox Creek Wines Best Short Film: The Audition (USA), Director Michael Haussman
BBFF Best Music Video: Tales Of Us by Goldfrapp (UK) Director Lisa Gunning
BBFF Best Cinematography: God’s Got His Head In The Clouds (Italy),Director: Gianluca Sodaro
BBFF Best Experimental Film: Leviathan Ages (UK), Director Jon Yeo
Greenhouse FX Best Animation: Shave It (Argentina), Director Fernando Maldonado & Jorge Tereso
BBFF Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Northern Rivers: IMAX pioneer, John Wylie
On Saturday evening the festival officially wrapped with the Closing Red Carpet Gala Event for the world premiere of award-winning director, Cathy Henkel’s film, RISE OF THE ECO WARRIORS. The film is about an international group of young people chosen to take a 100-day challenge to save rain forests and orangutans in a region of Borneo devastated by palm oil production. It received a standing ovation.
The festival also screened the world premiere of BURRA JURRA, attended by surfers Layne Beachley, Kirk Pengilly, Dave Rastovich, surf legend Brad Farmer. BURRA JURRA is a documentary about a local surf charity changing the lives of local indigenous kids attended by of which Beachley is a patron and supporter.
image 1: Byron Bay Film Festival Director, J’aimee Skippon-Volke (centre), Producer, Matt Huffman (left) and Master Thereminist Armen Ra of WHEN MY SORROW DIED: THE LEGEND OF ARMEN RA & THE THEREMIN. (right) arrive on the red carpet.
Image 2: INXS’s Kirk Pengilly and World Champion Surfer Layne Beachley with Head Coach of the Burra Jurra surf charity Steve Foreman and friends at BBFF 2014, Saturday 8th March for the world premiere of BURRA JURRA. Credit: Montana Wambach
GASLAND PART II, the follow up to Emmy Award-winning and Oscar®-nominated director Josh Fox’s groundbreaking documentary, GASLAND that exposed the truth, lies and corruption in the natural gas industry and inspired communities worldwide to act, will have its Australian Premiere on Saturday 1st March at the 8th Byron Bay International Film Festival. GASLAND PART II, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, shows how the stakes have been raised on all sides in one of the most important environmental issues facing the world today.
Fox uses his trademark dark humor to take a deeper, broader look at the dangers of the controversial mining method hydraulic fracturing, known as ‘fracking’, to extract natural gases like coal seam gas and oil, that is now occurring on a global level in 32 countries worldwide.
The film argues that the gas industry’s portrayal of natural gas as a clean and safe alternative to oil is a myth and that many ‘fracked’ wells inevitably leak over time, contaminating water and air, hurting families, and endangering the earth’s climate with the potent greenhouse gas, methane.
In addition, the film looks at how the powerful oil and gas industries are in Fox’s words “contaminating our democracy”.
The film is a relentless kick to the head of scientifically-sourced data, personal stories, case examples, insider information, consistent pragmatic research and an investigative documentary-makers mindset that keeps chasing the core subject matter, staying on track, keeping an audience’s interest front and centre in the frame.
Taking no prisoners in the making of GASLAND PART II, as reported in The Guardian in early 2012, Fox was arrested and handcuffed at US Congress when he tried to film a hearing about fracking. Fox stated, “This is the second or third time we were denied access to a hearing that should be covered and coverable by our film. Everyone should be allowed to take in these hearings. They are public speech.”
Byron Bay International Film Festival Director J’aimee Skippon-Volke has been in discussion with Josh since 2010 and is excited to be presenting the Australian Premiere of his second installment, which has been nominated for a hat trick of awards, Best Film, Best Documentary and Best Environmental Film.
http://youtu.be/dzx7UXzK_z4
WHEN MY SORROW DIED: THE LEGEND OF ARMEN RA & THE THEREMIN
Described as “Australia’s independent showcase for the edgiest filmmakers on the planet,” the 8th Byron Bay International Film Festival kicked off on Friday, February 28th and runs through March 9th, 2014. The festival opened with the Australian premiere of WHEN MY SORROW DIED: THE LEGEND OF ARMEN RA & THE THEREMIN – the candidly told life story of Armen Ra, who toured with Nick Cave and whose performance Debby Harry describes as ‘beyond’. RISE OF THE ECO WARRIORS closes the festival.15 brave and passionate young people and one scientist step up against rampant destruction in Borneo to save its Orangutans.
Other film highlights include:
Multi-award winning anti-fracking doco GASLAND 2 from Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated director and ativist, Josh Fox. Nominee, Best Film; Best Environmental Film; Best Documentary
Australian premiere of WHEN MY SORROW DIED: THE LEGEND OF ARMEN RA & THE THEREMIN – the candidly told life story of Armen Ra, who toured with Nick Cave and whose performance Debby Harry describes as ‘beyond’. Opening Night Film. Nominee, Best Film, Best Documentary
World premiere of the gobsmacking DWARVES KINGDOM – about a real life fantastical mountain village built for 3,000 Chinese dwarves.
Game-changing Australian gay surf film OUT IN THE LINE UP cracks open homophobia in this Aussie way of life. Nominee, Best Surf Film.
THE INTERVIEWER by former Tropfest winner, Genevieve Clay-Smith, and co-created with 12 people living with a disability.
World premiere of highly anticipated, A WOMAN’S DEEPER JOURNEY INTO SEX starring infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and pornstar Jesse Jane
A GUERRA DA BEATRIZ, the first post-war dramatic feature film from East Timor. Nominee, Best Dramatic Feature
World premiere of Aussie surf film BURRAJURRA, a doco about the life-changing indigenous surf charity featuring champions Layne Beachleyand Josh Melling. Nominee, Best Surf Film
RISE OF THE ECO WARRIORS closes the festival.15 brave and passionate young people and one scientist step up against rampant destruction in Borneo to save its Orangutans. Nominee, Best Environmental Film.
Girls go hard in New Zealand’s PRETTY BRUTAL about the highs and lows of the roller derby scene – one of six films to be shown at the Festival’s showcase for International Women’s Day on 8 March
THE ACTIVIST. A thriller set in 1973 about two Native American activists embroiled in a secret that stretches all the way to Hollywood and Nixon. Nominee, Best Film, Best Dramatic Feature
THE DEFLOWERING OF EVA VAN END. A Wes Anderson-style feature about a family aflutter when an Adonis-like exchange student moves in. Nominee, Best Film, Best Dramatic Feature
A cross-cultural dance fusion from the streets of New York to farthest India, UPAJ: IMPROVISE. Stars Emmy-winner, Jason Samuels-Smith. Nominee, Best film, Best Documentary.
image via ianyanmag