iW NEWS | "Were The World Mine" Leads Outfest Winners

Outfest 2008 announced its 14 annual film competition awards last night at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. 17 "Outie Awards" were handed out upon selection by grand juries, festival audiences and the Programs Committee. Tom Gustafson's "Were The World Mine," which indieWIRE profiled, won the Grand Jury Award for outstanding U.S. dramatic feature, while Lucia Puenzo's "XXY" won for international dramatic feature, Daryl Wein's "Sex Positive" won for documentary feature, and Tye Olson ("Watercolors") and Nicole Bilderback ("The New Twenty") won for acting. "Watercolors" also won the audience award for outstanding first dramatic feature. Other audience awards went to Andrew Fleming's "Hamlet 2" for dramatic feature and Carolyn Coal's "A Place To Live" for documentary feature. The Programs Committee awarded David Assmann and Ayat Najafi's "Football Under Cover" the Outfest Freedom Award, Matt Wolf the artistic achievement award for "Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell," and Dave O'Brien the emerging talent award for directing "Equality U." The awards ceremony was followed by the Los Angeles premiere of "Were The World Wine." [Peter Knegt]