Joonam (2023)

[caption id="attachment_23721" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] The Feeling of Being Watched[/caption] The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) handed out the awards to the winners of the 2018 Festival, with the Audience Award going out to Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched.   CIFF hosted their annual Awards Ceremony, presenting four awards for documentary features and one for a documentary short, in addition to its Points North Pitch Award. In the Pitch, the six teams of Points North Fellows who worked with industry members in a year-long mentorship, presented their feature documentary works-in-progress to a top-level panel of funders, producers and broadcasters — all before a live audience at the Camden Opera House. For the 2nd year, Showtime Documentary Films was the Presenting Sponsor of the Fellowship. This year’s Points North Pitch Award, which included in-kind post-production services from Boston-based Modulus Studios, went to director Sierra Urich’s work-in-progress feature documentary, Joonam. An Academy-qualifying festival for short films, the winner of the Camden Cartel Award for Best Short is eligible to enter the Documentary Short Subject competition for the Academy.This year’s winner is Circle by Jayisha Patel. The runner-up was David Freid’s Guns Found Here. For the fourth year, CIFF collaborated with long-time partner, Documentary Educational Resources, to present the John Marshall Award for Contemporary Ethnographic Media. The Jury of Alice Apley (Documentary Educational Resources), Alijah Case (Documentary Educational Resources), Ilisa Barbash (Producer/Director), Ernst Karel (Sound Artist), Irina Leimbacher (Critic, Educator), and Maple Razsa (Anthropologist, Filmmaker) awarded this year’s John Marshall Award to Ramell Ross’s Hale County This Morning. Jurors Enat Sidi (editor), Meghan Monsour (Creative Director, Ambulante Film Festival) and Sean Farnel (producer) awarded the 2018 Cinematic Vision Award to Vadym Ilkov’s My Father Is My Mother’s Brother, with Special Jury Mention going to Exit Music, directed Cameron Mullenneaux. The Jury noted: “Surprising, tender and quietly profound, My Father Is My Mother’s Brother is non-fiction filmmaking at its finest. A raw, creative, and unconventional family portrait.” This year’s jury of Andrea Meditch (producer), Justine Nagan (POV), Talal Derki (Filmmaker, OF FATHERS AND SONS) awarded the 2018 Harrell Award for Best Documentary Feature to On Her Shoulders, directed by Alexandria Bombach: “For using an intimate but respectful gaze to convey suffering through subtle gestures and the use of silence. The film captures the weight of bearing witness by allowing the protagonist to speak for herself. On Her Shoulders transforms a traumatic personal experience into a realization of horrifying and memorable collective responsibility.” The Harrell Jury awarded two Special Mentions: one each to Vitaly Mansky’s Putin’s Witnesses and James Longley’s Angels Are Made of Light. The 2018 Camden International Film Festival Audience Award went to Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched. The 15th edition of the Camden International Film Festival will take place September 12 to 15, 2019. Submissions will open in January 2019.

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