International films won top honors Sunday at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival. The Mexican documentary Drought and the Portuguese film All is Well beat out industry players such at Woody Allen and his film From Rome With Love and widely publicized Magic Mike starring Chaning Tatum. Actors Jon Heder and Ari Graynor were on hand to present the jury awards to Festival victors.
“Every single filmmaker in this year’s Festival deserves kudos for their artistry and compelling stories, said Festival Director Stephanie Allain in an official statement. “Our juries had such gems to choose from in each competition and the winners truly represent what we hold dear—diversity and uniqueness of vision.”
The two top juried awards of the Los Angeles Film Festival are the Narrative Award and Documentary Award, each carrying an unrestricted $15,000 cash prize, funded by Film Independent, for the winning film’s director. The awards were established by the Festival to encourage independent filmmakers to pursue their artistic ambitions.
“In an extremely competitive year, our juries had hard choices to make. The winning films are wonderful examples of what the Festival celebrates: bold, fresh, personal visions that expand the horizons of independent cinema,” said Artistic Director David Ansen.
The Narrative Award recognizes the finest narrative film in competition at the Festival and went to Pocas Pascoal for the North American Premiere of All is Well, with an Honorable Mention going to Dominga Sotomayor’s Thursday Till Sunday. The Documentary Award recognizes the finest documentary film in competition at the Festival and went to Everardo González for the US Premiere of Drought.
The award for Best Performance in the Narrative Competition went to Wendell Pierce, Emory Cohen, E.J. Bonilla and Aja Naomi King for their performances in the World Premiere of Joshua Sanchez’s Four. Given to an actor or actors from an official selection in the Narrative Competition, this is the ninth year the award has been given at the Festival.
The LA Film Fest also awarded an unrestricted $5,000 cash prize to each short film category. The award for Best Narrative Short Film went to The Chair, directed by Grainger David. The award for Best Documentary Short Film went to Josh Gibson for Kudzu Vine. Joseph Pierce’s The Pub won for Best Animated or Experimental Short Film.
The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Beasts of the Southern Wild, directed by Benh Zeitlin and the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature went to Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives, directed by Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore. Searching for Sugar Man, directed by Malik Bendjelloul won the Audience Award for Best International Feature.
The Audience Award for Best Short Film went to Asad, directed by Bryan Buckley. Piranhas Club, directed by Lex Halaby won the Audience Award for Best Music Video.
The Narrative Feature Competition jury was comprised of actress Rachael Harris (Natural Selection, Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies), actor/writer/producer/director Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle, The Five Heartbeats) and film critic Sheri Linden (LAFCA, The Hollywood Reporter, The Los Angeles Times).
The Documentary Feature Competition jury was comprised of producer Heather Rae (Frozen River, The Dry Land), producer Karin Chien (Circumstance, The Exploding Girl) and director Mark Landsman (Thunder Soul). The Shorts Competition Jury was comprised of film critic and author Ernest Hardy (Blood Beats Vols. 1 and 2), cinematographer Nancy Schreiber (Your Friends and Neighbors, The Celluloid Closet) and writer/director/editor Javier Fuentes León (Contracorriente).