Greg Pak's ROBOT STORIES won a special jury award for emotional truth at the 2003 FFF. Greg gave one of the sweetest speeches ever and hailed the crazy bowling party we had that year. Good times. Greg's book Robot Stories and More Screenplays is currently out in paperback. We expect to hear lots more from Greg in the future! Best of luck from the gang at Enzian.

"Greg Pak's fantasy anthology piece, which details the ways robots have complicated the lives of humans, has a dexterous sense of wonder...Mr. Pak's feel for melodrama adds a piercing and thoughtful end note similar to the emotional gravity found in Stephen King novellas like The Body and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, both in Mr. King's collection Different Seasons. But it's Mr. Pak's respect for the actors that he's selected that seems to work hand-in-exoskeleton with the thematic mission of the protagonists in each chapter of Stories... The most startling aspect of Robot Stories is not the mix the filmmaker built from spare parts left on the curb, but Mr. Pak's evolving dramatic acumen. He's a talent with a future."
- The New York Times

Congratulations to Florida Film Festival veterans Arlene Donnelly Nelson and husband David Nelson as well as Talmage Cooley, for making the Motion Picture Academy's short list in the category of Documentary Short Subject for this year's 78th Academy Awards on March 5. Eight titles were recently announced from which three to five will be nominated for the Oscar.

Talmage's strikingly gritty film, DIMMER, about a gang of tough, blind teenagers on the mean streets of Buffalo, had its East Coast Premiere and second US showing at the 2005 Florida Film Festival. His previous fictional work, POL POT'S BIRTHDAY, was a hit in the 2004 Festival.

Arlene and David's beautiful and touching POSITIVELY NAKED had its Southeast Premiere at last year's FFF. The film focuses on 85 HIV-positive individuals as they bare their souls for the filmmakers and their bodies for a magazine cover that famed photographer Spencer Tunick is shooting. Tunick's quest to photograph people naked in every state in the nation was captured in the Nelson's earlier feature-length work, NAKED STATES, winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at FFF 2000.

We wish all three filmmakers the best of luck, and congratulations again for creating such extraordinary non-fiction work in small packages.

- Matthew Curtis