"Broken Vessels" Wins Top LAIFF Prize Amid Acquisitions Buzz

by Eugene Hernandez

Scott Ziehl's feature "Broken Vessels," the story of a paramedic who gets sucked into an underworld of drugs while trying to escape his haunted past, won the Audience Award at the 1998 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, the event's top prize. Filmmaker Rory Kelly won the directing prize for his movie "Some Girls" and Rocky Collins won the audience award for screenwriting, honoring his script for his film "Pants on Fire." Also awarded last night was the festival's Indie Supporter Award to Eric Stoltz, producer and star of the closing film, "Mr. Jealousy," written and directed by Noah Baumbach. The prizes were presented last night prior to the festival's closing night gala here at the DGA in LA.

"Vessels" which is produced by Roxana Zal and filmmaker Scott Ziehl, stars Jason London and Todd Field. It played before full house crowds over the weekend and has developed considerable buzz among distribution executives. indieWIRE has learned that the film screened yesterday morning at a private showing for the head of a leading studio specialty division and another distributor screening is scheduled for this afternoon here in Los Angeles. Festival organizers spent time yesterday releasing prints to local acquisitions executives at companys throughout the city, as distribs scrambled to take a second look at some of the festival's hotter films. Among the prints that began making the rounds late Sunday and yesterday were "1999," "Bongwater," "Claudine's Return," "Cleopatra's Second Husband," "The Cruise," "Some Girls," and "With or Without You."

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