Film Festivals

‘Women Is Losers’ ‘Holy Frit’ ‘Peace by Chocolate’ Win at 2021 Naples International Film Festival

Winners of 2021 Naples International Film Festival

Lissette Feliciano’s Women Is Losers won the jury prize for Best Narrative Feature (and a cash prize of $2,500) and Justin Monroe’s Holy Frit won the jury prize for Best Documentary Feature (and $2,500) at the 2021 Naples International Film Festival. Audience Awards went to Jonathan Keijser’s Peace by Chocolate (Best Narrative Feature), Christopher Chambers’ A Fire Within (Best Documentary Feature) and Maria Brendle’s Ala Kachuu – Take and Run (Best Short Film). Both feature films received cash prizes of $1,000 and the short film winner received a cash prize of $500.

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Disfluency, Buried, Larry Flynt for President, Unsilenced Among Winners of 2021 Austin Film Festival

Larry Flynt for President

Disfluency written and directed by Anna Baumgarten took the jury award for Best Narrative Feature, and Buried directed by Jared Drake and Steven Siig won for Best Documentary Feature at the 2021 Austin Film Festival (AFF).

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‘The Worst Person in the World,’ ‘Flee,’ ‘Dionne Warwick’ Among 2021 Montclair Film Festival Awards Winners

“The Worst Person in the World,” “Flee,” “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” – 2021 Montclair Film Festival Awards Winners

The Worst Person in the World directed by Joachim Trier was awarded the Fiction Feature Prize and Flee, directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, took home the festival’s top Non-Fiction Competition prize at the 2021 Montclair Film Festival (MFF).

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‘Belfast’ Wins Best Film + Audience Award at Twin Cities Film Fest 2021

(L to R) Caitriona Balfe as “Ma”, Jamie Dornan as “Pa”, Judi Dench as “Granny”, Jude Hill as “Buddy”, and Lewis McAskie as “Will” in director Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

Kenneth Branagh’s critically acclaimed drama Belfast took home the Best Feature Film prize at the 2021 Twin Cities Film Fest. A semi-autobiographical portrait of childhood and working class family life in Northern Ireland during the tumultuous period of the late 1960s, the film stars Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe.

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Louis Hothothot’s Personal Documentary ‘Four Journeys’ to Open 2021 IDFA Slate of 264 Documentary Films

Four Journeys directed by Louis Hothothot

Four Journeys, the lyrical and intensely personal debut feature by Louis Hothothot (Louis Yi Liu) will open the 34th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). A first-person narrative of a filmmaker born in China in 1986 as an “illegal” second child, Louis and his family suffered devastating consequences at the hands of the authorities, with painful reverberations still felt to this day. After relocating to Amsterdam in his twenties, the filmmaker returns home to reunite with his parents and sister after a five-year hiatus, where he attempts to disentangle his densely knotted family history. Unfolding as a soft and sorrowful stream of memories, absences, and lingering shadows, Four Journeys premieres at IDFA bearing the mark of a new documentary poetics to come—one laden with wonder, nuance, and spirit.

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South Korean Film ‘Escape from Mogadishu’ to Close Asian World Film Festival

Escape from Mogadishu

The 2021 Asian World Film Festival (AWFF) unveiled its Competition, Centerpiece, and Special Screenings slate. The closing night film will be South Korea’s official submission to the 2022 Academy Awards, Escape from Mogadishu. The AWFF, now in its seventh year, will take place November 1 – 11, 2021 at the Landmark Theater, West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles.

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Napa Valley Film Festival Announces Honorees – Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Harvey Keitel, Marlee Matlin and More

Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Harvey Keitel, Marlee Matlin

Napa Valley Film Festival (NVFF) revealed the recipients of the the “Napa Valley Filmmaker Awards” honoring some of this year’s leading talent at this year’s event taking place virtually November 10-14. Also, a new series of “Culinary Cinema Awards” will make its debut at this year’s festival paying tribute to remarkable achievements in storytelling devoted to food, wine, and spirits.

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The Falconer and Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story Win Top Prizes at 2021 SCAD Savannah Film Festival

The Falconer, directed by Adam Sjöberg and Seanne Winslow.

The Savannah College of Art and Design announced the award winners for the 24th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival. In the professional competition, Best Documentary Feature went to Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story, directed by Paul Michael Angell; and Best Narrative Feature went to The Falconer, directed by Adam Sjöberg and Seanne Winslow in addition to the Best Director honors.

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Film at Lincoln Center Announces 8th Art of the Real Showcase Lineup

the names have been changed, including my own and truths have been altered

Film at Lincoln Center announced the eighth edition of Art of the Real, the essential showcase for vital and innovative voices in nonfiction and hybrid filmmaking, from November 19-21, 2021. Aptly subtitled “Counter Encounters,” this year’s Art of the Real presents one feature and 41 shorts, and encompasses works by historical and contemporary filmmakers, artists, collectives, and communities. Their practices not only disturb classical ethnographic paradigms, but also reinvent an art of the real in itself.

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Memoria, Skál, ‘King Richard’ Win at 57th Chicago International Film Festival Award

Tilda Swinton in Memoria directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

At the 57th Chicago International Film Festival, the Gold Hugo in the International Competition went to Memoria, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s beguiling, beautiful film following a Scotswoman (Tilda Swinton) living in Bogotá haunted by a noise that only she seems to hear. Along with a young sound engineer, her search for the origin of the mysterious sound takes her to the interior of the lush Colombian jungle where past, present, and future blur.

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QUEEN OF GLORY and LARRY FLYNT FOR PRESIDENT Win Top Indie Memphis Film Festival 2021 Awards –

“Queen of Glory” directed by Nana Mensah

Indie Memphis Film Festival 2021 announce the award-winners with top Jury Award prizes – Best Narrative Feature for Nana Mensah’s Queen of Glory (winner of $1K cash prize), Best Documentary Feature for Nadia Szold’s Larry Flynt for President (winner of $1K cash prize) and Best Hometowner Feature for Zachary Barr and Peter Mortimer’s Reel Rock: Black Ice (winner of $1K cash prize).

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Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Awards – Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas’ EGO Wins Best Film

Ego directed by Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas

Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas’ psychological social-media thriller Ego, which world premiered at this year’s 6th edition of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival went on to win three awards including Best Feature, Best Screenplay and Best Actress for María Pedraza.

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