Congratulations to University of Central Florida Film grad and Florida Film Festival alum Danny Daneau for the trio of honors recently bestowed on his feature debut, THE ATTIC DOOR, at the 6th annual Bend Film Festival. Held October 8 - 11 in the gorgeous northwest town of Bend, Oregon (yours truly actually went White Water River Rafting there once!), the festival awarded the film “Best Feature,” “Best Cinematography” (fellow UCF alum Scott Uhlfelder shot it), and “Best Music Score” (by composer Kristin Ohrn Dyrud).
THE ATTIC DOOR, which had its World Premiere at the 2009 Florida Film Festival in April, tells of two abandoned pioneer siblings who must confront their greatest fears when they are left alone in their 19th century American West desert home. As they anxiously await for their parents to return from town with their newborn brother or sister, this Twilight Zone-ish tale becomes a haunting story about growing up.
Major kudos to Danny, producer Erica Harrell, the rest of his Central Florida production team, and the cast and crew for this well-deserved recognition. We’re proud of you!
Nina Paley’s ingenious animated feature and festival favorite, SITA SINGS THE BLUES, finally makes its DVD debut today, July 28. One of the most unique full-length animated works in years and among the most beloved films at this Spring’s Florida Film Festival, SITA juxtaposes multiple narrative and visual styles to present a personal and thoroughly modern adaptation of the Indian epic, The Ramayana, as it relates to the real-life tale of the filmmaker’s marriage falling apart. Throw in a Greek chorus of a wryly comic trio of Indonesian shadow puppets, a monkey army, and awesome old jazz and blues recordings from 1920s legend Annette Hanshaw, and you have an adult-friendly cartoon unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.
And it’s precisely those charming and haunting old songs on the soundtrack that have caused the delay in the film’s homevideo release. While Hanshaw’s recordings are in the Public Domain, the song compositions and lyrics were actually owned by a handful of big media corporations who were asking for exorbitant license fees. Paley went into debt to finally clear the rights, but her loss is our gain—the film is now 100% legit and available for public consumption. If you saw it at a festival, support Nina and plunk down your $19.99 to own a copy of this extraordinary work. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you definitely need to check out this witty and beautiful debut feature that inspired Roger Ebert to write on his Chicago Sun-Times blog, “I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishly original.” ‘Nuff said.
Belated congratulations to Joaquin Baldwin of UCLA, whose short film, SEBASTIAN’S VOODOO, was recently named one of three winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 36th Annual Student Academy Award competition. The visually stunning CGI work was one of the true highlights of this year’s Animated Shorts program in the Florida Film Festival, and its heroic tale of a voodoo doll who must summon the courage to save his fellow dolls from their human captor earned one of the highest Audience Award scores in the entire festival.
While Joaquin knows he’s one of three winners in the Animation category, his placement—Gold, Silver, or Bronze (each worth a different cash grant amount)—will not be announced until a ceremony on June 13 at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Best of luck, Joaquin! We’ll be rooting for you.
That gurgling sound you hear is me finally coming up for air more than a week after the conclusion of this year’s incredible 18th annual Florida Film Festival. Once again we’d like to thank the filmmakers, special guests, panelists, and audiences who made this year perhaps the best one yet—at least that’s what we’re hearing from just about everyone. Nothing makes it more worthwhile than to get such positive feedback and glowing comments from those that participated and experienced our special 10-day cinematic party.
Multiple award winners ruled the day, which was highly unusual. We’ve had films win double awards before (going all the way back to the Belic Brothers’ GENGHIS BLUES), but rarely in both the Narrative Feature and Doc Feature categories. But that’s just what happened in 2009 with Rafael Monserrate’s hilarious dysfunctional family comedy, POUNDCAKE, taking not only the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, but a Special Jury Award for Original Screenplay to its co-writers and cast members, Troy Hall and Kevin Logie. Doc features hit the daily double as well with Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated, David vs. Goliath urban struggle gripper, THE GARDEN, winning both the Grand Jury Award and Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Considering the other films in the competition, that’s a pretty remarkable feat.
And let’s not forget about San Francisco’s Lev Yilmaz and his ongoing series of film-while-he-draws observations on life and relationships, TALES OF MERE EXISTENCE. Central Florida audiences simply love this unique filmmaker’s work (and perspective), honoring him with a third Audience Award for Best Short Film in the last four years! Since that award can be given to any of the domestic narrative, documentary, or animated shorts in the American Independent Competition, it is technically the hardest one to win, with the worst odds. Pretty damn impressive…
For those of you who may not have caught it elsewhere, here’s the rest of the awards bestowed by both the juries and the audiences: Sean Baker’s gritty immigrant drama, PRINCE OF BROADWAY, won the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature; in the Docs category, Kimberly Reed won a Special Jury Award for Fearless Filmmaking for her jaw-dropping and intimate PRODIGAL SONS, while Matt Morris won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short for his peek into a North Carolina, bluegrass rockin’ barber shop, PICKIN’ & TRIMMIN’; in the Shorts category, Benh Zeitlin’s haunting GLORY AT SEA won the coveted Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Short (the first step in qualifying for next year’s Academy Awards); the always brilliant Don Hertzfeldt won the Grand Jury Award for Best Animated Short; teen actress Jasmine Jessica Anthony won a Special Jury Award for Outstanding Performance (opposite a riveting Winona Ryder) in Blake Sennett’s WATER PILLS; and the Audience Award for Best International Feature went to Ben Whalley’s definitive BBC music doc, NEIL YOUNG: DON’T BE DENIED, while Best International Short went to the comically masterful INSTEAD OF ABRACADABRA, directed by Patrik Eklund of Sweden.
Good choices, one and all. Hope you were here to enjoy with the rest of us. Can’t wait to get geared up to start the process all over again for 2010 (APRIL 9 - 18 by the way).
Check it out! The one and only JON VOIGHT interviewed by BeforeYouSubmit.com’s Brian Quain. Mr. Voight took time to chat with people waiting in line for his event, hung out at Eden Bar and stayed after the event to sign autographs & have photos taken…what a swell guy!
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