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Outfest: “Weekend” wins international prize, “The Wise Kids” top U.S. film & “We Were Here” documentary audience award

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Well, Outfest 2011 has ended and what a terrific festival it was.
In all, I saw two-dozen films and shorts programs and three of my favorite movies were among the big award winners on Sunday morning.
Weekend, written and directed by Andrew Haigh [pictured, left], received Grand Jury Award for Outstanding International Dramatic Feature Film.
The jury called the film “a touching, authentic portrayal of gay life as we truly experience it: not stylized, not glamorized, but heartfelt, perceptive and absorbingly real. From the first frame it manages to get beneath the artifice we are used to. In its own quiet, unflinching way it leaves you a little bit changed, and yet more yourself than you ever were.”
Beautifully stated.
I spoke with Haigh after the awards brunch and he called the win “amazing.”
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “There are so many good films here and to win is really great – especially in the international section. It’s good for us, it’s good for the film to help to get it out there.”
http://images1.variety.com/graphics/photos/WebImages/newsweekend181.jpgWeekend was a complete sellout when it screened at the DGA theater Wednesday night and was one of the films people were buzzing about the most.
“It’s so nice,” Haigh said. “You never know how an audience is going to take it so it’s really good when the audience responds well to something. It makes you feel like you’ve done your job.”
I went on the record last week proclaiming Weekend the best movie I had seen at the festival this year. The film already has distribution and will be out in theaters on Sept. 30. Locally, it will play at the Sunset 5 as well as in Pasadena.

http://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/_images/slate_images/thewisekids/thewisekids-still.jpgAnother of my favorites was The Wise Kids, written and directed by Stephen Cone who also co-stars in the film. It won the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding U.S. Dramatic Feature Film and the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Screenwriting.

This is a superb coming of age Southern drama set in a Baptist church community in Charleston, South Carolina and focuses on three friends are contemplating the stage in their lives between high school and college. [See my earlier post about the film HERE]
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The jury said of the The Wise Kids: “We were very moved by this film not only as a love letter to the community it depicts but as a universal portrayal of characters both coming of age and coming of middle age. We also believe this film represents American independent cinema at its best and marks the discovery of a filmmaker with a compelling cinematic voice.
They said the script “transports us to a world with rare authenticity and plunges into the lives of a myriad of characters with surprising depth and compassion and never judges its characters.”

Cone, who was at Outfest last weekend to present the film, was not at the awards ceremony. Leading man Tyler Ross [pictured, above] said Cone was appearing in a play in Chicago called The Homosexuals and accepted the awards on his behalf.

“I’m so glad I got to act in this wonderful, beautiful movie,” Ross said. “I’d never read a script like that. He was an absolute joy to work with and a phenomenal storyteller.”

http://www.screendaily.com/pictures/586xAny/5/4/5/1129545_We_Were_Here.jpgThe outstanding We Were Here, directed by David Weissman and Bill Weber, won the Audience Award for Outstanding Documentary Feature Film. It is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and explores how the city’s inhabitants were affected by, and how they responded to, that calamitous epidemic.

It was very gratifying to see these movies win these awards because they greatly enhanced my Outfest experience this year.

Other Audience Award winners: Outstanding Documentary Short Film: Same Difference, directed by Catherine Opie and Lisa Udelson; Outstanding Dramatic Short Film: Tsuyako, directed by Mitsuyo Miyazaki; Outstanding Dramatic Feature Film: 3, directed by Tom Tykwer; and Outstanding First U.S. Dramatic Feature Film: Circumstance, directed by Maryam Keshavarz.

Other Grand Jury Award winners: Outstanding Documentary Short Film: Thank You For Your Call directed by Shawn Nee; Outstanding Dramatic Short Film: I Don’t Want To Go Back Alone directed by Daniel Ribeiro; Outstanding Documentary Feature Film: Habana Muda directed by Eric Brach; Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film: Nikohl Boosheri in Circumstance; Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film: The cast of Private Romeo.

Special Programming Awards: Award for Freedom: No Look Pass directed by Melissa Johnson; Artistic Achievement: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye directed by Marie Losier; and Emerging Talent: Madeleine Olnek, writer/director of Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.

Congratulations to all of the winners!

FILE UNDER: Awards, Outfest

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