Today we received an email from Akkadia Ford the Festival Director of Queer Fruits Film Festival announcing the 2010 Festival awards winners in the following categories :
Outstanding Short - Vigilant ! Healthy ! Wholesome !
Outstanding Documentary - Projecting the Body
Outstanding Animation - The Confession of Father John Thomas
Outstanding Student - Oscar's First Kiss
Outstanding Experimental - The Tannery
Local Filmmaker Incentive - The Confession of Father John Thomas
Audience Choice - Ms.Thing
JURY Prize - Resonance
The films were independently judged by 2010 Distinguished Festival Juror Francesco (Franc) Biffone (http://www.francbiffone.com/bio.html) an internationally respected and sought after Director of Photography. The program was judged solely on the screenings, without any additional information provided. The Distinguished Juror was not informed that we were the local filmmakers and he was really surprised and then extremely pleased that we had received both awards, he said ''the film (TCOFJT) is so multi-layered I could watch it again and again''.
This is wonderful news for the start of our film and it has not even hit the festival circuit yet! But i question, can we learn something out of this? That you should screen your film locally first maybe before you get it our to the world? Like every new film (or project) being released into the global world will seek it's path, will find it's audience. That has been my experience with my previous short films.
I have now gone into full submission mode and have in the last couple of days submitted to Annecy, Edinburgh, MIFF, Dendy Awards, still deciding which festival i should submit to as a first in the US, as i want to try Cannes again, so it has to be after middle of May! We still had no news from Berlin, so at this stage i do not believe that to be a good thing, meaning we most likely missed out!
But i did receive an email from J’aimee Skippon-Volke the Festival Director of the Byron Bay International Film Festival "I am happy to inform you that your film has made it into our shortlist for possible inclusion in BBFF2011 - held in March. We have two tiers of shortlisting and you are in the top of those two tiers... so should the worst happen and your film does not make it through please know, with pride, that it was at the top of over 800 entries..."
And so the journey continuos...
