At the conclusion of the 49th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival, the fest announced the following award winners for their various awards, which each come with a cash prize. The Michigan festival, around for nearly a half-century, is one of the leading festival venues for experimental work. Jury members for this year’s festival were Stephen Connolly, Rebecca Meyers and Vanessa Renwick.
The complete list of winners follows:
Ken Burns Award Best of the Festival – $3,000
Jan Villa (Natasha Mendonca, 2010)
Stan Brakhage Film at Wit’s End Award – $1,000
Drifter (Timoleon Wilkins, 2010)
Gus Van Sant Award Best Experimental Film – $1,000
In The Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails (Fern Silva, 2010)
Michael Moore Award Best Documentary Film – $1,000
Disorder (Huang Weikai, 2009)
Lawrence Kasdan Award Best Narrative Film – $1,000
Home Movie (Braden King, 2009)
Chris Frayne Award Best Animated Film – $1,000
Hand Soap (Kei Oyama, 2009)
The Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award Emerging Experimental Video Artist – $1,000
I Touched Her Legs (Eva Marie Rødbro, 2010)
Prix DeVarti Funniest Film – $1,000
The Mechanism of Spring (Atsushi Wada, 2010)
In A Pig’ s Eye (Atsushi Wada, 2010)
Art & Science Award – $750
Trypps #7 (Badlands) (Ben Russell, 2010)
Peter Wilde Award Most Technically Innovative Film – $500
These Hammers Don’ t Hurt Us (Michael Robinson, 2010)
autFI LM Award Best LGBT Film – $500
Covered (John Greyson, 2009)
Award for Best Sound Design – $500
Get Out Of The Car (Thom Andersen, 2010)
Kodak/Grace & Wild Imaging Award for Best Cinematography – $3,000
[$1,500 of film plus $1,500 processing]
Castaic Lake (Brigid McCaffrey, 2010)
Tom Berman Award Most Promising Filmmaker – $1,000
Aliki (Richard Wiebe, 2010)
George Manupelli Founder’s Spirit Award – $500
A Family Portrait (Joseph Pierce, 2009)
The Eileen Maitland Award – $500
Hepworth (Alexis Bravos, 2011)
The No Violence Award – $512
Atlantiques (Mati Diop, 2010)
Award for Best International Film – $500
Vargtimmen – After a Scene by Ingmar Bergman (Georg Tiller, 2010)
Award for Best Music Video – $500
I Say Fever (Ramona Falls) (Stefan Nadelman, 2009)
Jury Awards (named by jurors)
The Radiant Grace Award – $550
Little Brother (Callum Cooper, 2010)
The Flood of Love Award – $500
The Florestine Collection (Helen Hill, Paul Gailiunas, 2011)
The Looking and Listening Award – $200 each
Broad Channel (Sarah J. Christman, 2010)
New Year Sun (Jonathan Schwartz, 2010)
The Innie Outie Award – $200
PINK (Soon-Mi Yoo, 2011)
The On the Fly Award – $200
Ray’s Birds (Deborah Stratman, 2010)
The Double Documentary Award – $200
28.IV.81 (Descending Figures) (Christopher Harris, 2011)
The Actuality Award – $200
Make It New, John (Duncan Campbell, 2009)
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