Florida Film Festival Winners

June 22, 1998

Recalling the magical memories of the circus and likening them to the excitement generated by the 1998 Florida Film Festival, Executive Director Melanie Gasper welcomed attendees to Saturday night's awards ceremony at Universal Studios Florida. The circus analogy has been an important one over the past ten days in Central Florida, as it has framed the 7th annual event. In a soundstage festooned with circus-style decorations (not to mention stilt-walking clowns and a pair of trapeze artists), the festival presented its audience, jury, and acting achievement prizes.

"The Human Race" won the festival's documentary Audience Award and was also given a Special Jury Prize for Compassion and Vision. The film, directed by Bobby Houston, tracks a group of HIV positive sailors racing from Southern California to Hawaii. indieWIRE has learned that the movie has been acquired by HBO for airing on the cable network. The festival's Grand Jury Prize was awarded to "The Farm", Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus' Sundance-award winning film about a maximum security prison in Louisiana. The film recently opened at New York City's Film Forum. Meanwhile, the jury prize for best short film was presented to Jay Rosenblatt's "Human Remains", also an award winner at Sundance. The awards were presented by documentary jurors Debra Zimmerman, Executive Director of Women Make Movies, FILMMAKER Magazine's Mike Jones, and Aldon James from the National Arts Club.

On the dramatic side, writer-director Nicholas Barker's "Unmade Beds" was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. indieWIRE has learned that the film, described as a doc-style "pseudo narrative" about being single in New York, will debut in Manhattan on August 7th. The film will open at the Screening Room, a venue booked by former Angelika Film Center scheduler Jeff Jacobs. Following a run in NYC, the film may be expanded to other screens nationwide; Jacobs books numerous art screens domestically. "Unmade Beds" first screened at the 1997 Telluride Film Festival followed by showings in Venice and Toronto. It won the Grand Prize at the Stockholm Film Festival and also screened last week at the Nantucket Film Festival. The festival's dramatic audience award went to Paul Wagner's "Windhorse", a film that was shot in Tibet using local non-actors, while Derek Cianfrance's "Brother Tied", which premiered at Sundance, was awarded a Special Jury Award for Bold Original Expression. "Every Dog Has Its Day", a film by Marc Chiat, was awarded the festival's first Cinematography Award. The dramatic jury featured LAIFF programmer Thomas Ethan Harris, October Film's Lori Bandazian, and former agent and studio executive, producer Jerry Tokofsky ("Glengarry Glen Ross").

In the short film categories, the jury chose "Waiting for Woody" by Grant Heslov, and audiences recognized Pixar's 1998 Oscar-winner "Geri's Game", directed by Jan Pinkava. A Special Jury Award for Live Action Short was presented to Corky Quakenbush for "One Hand, Left", and a Special Jury Award for Animated Short was given to Eileen O'Meara for "That Strange Person." Actor Seymour Cassel, Polygram's Suzanne Leroy, and PR vet Dale Olson served on the Short Film jury. The Student Award, chosen by jurors Charlie Krestul, David Frazier, and Paul Sirmons, was presented to the University of Central Florida's Ryan Sullivan for his film, "Hobby Lane Matinee."

The 1998 Festival selected three actors for special achievement awards. Actor Cliff Robertson ("Charly, "Three Days of the Condor") accepted his prize thanking the festival and reflecting on his career in the industry. Earlier in the day, Robertson attended a special 30th anniversary festival screening of "Charly" and participated in a Q & A session to discuss the movie. Robertson is planning on writing and directing an independently-produced sequel to the film for which he won a Best Actor Oscar. Actor Scott Wilson ("In the Heat of the Night", "In Cold Blood") also received a special acting achievement award, as did indie actor/director Steve Buscemi ("Trees Lounge", "Reservoir Dogs"). Actor Seymour Cassel ("The Late Blues", "Minnie and Moskowitz") introduced Buscemi whom he co-starred with in the 1992 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner "In The Soup", directed by Alexandre Rockwell. His voice trembling with emotion following the introduction, Buscemi recalled being inspired by the work of John Cassavetes and singled out memories of watching Cassel grow up on camera in Cassavetes' landmark independent films.

Conceived by programming committee member and former festival marketer Mike Monello, the Florida Film Festival's circus theme was initially conceived as a celebration of the sideshow. In New York City almost two years ago for the IFFM, Monello wandered down the street from the Angelika Film Center and stumbled into a sideshow at the annual San Gennaro festival. A year later, following a IFFM-timed trip to Coney Island, Monello was again struck by a sideshow, this time focusing on the unique banners promoting it. Determined to include a similar motif at the 1998 Festival, Monello tracked down aging sideshow artist Johnny Meah in nearby Riverview and convinced to paint a banner for the fest. Aside from making the festival more accessible to attendees, Monello believes that the sideshow concept perfectly underscores a broader theme. "The big top is Hollywood", he explained saying that the main circus would always get all the attention, but conceding, "When the circus left town, people were still talking about the sideshow."

--reprinted from indieWIRE

Eugene Hernandez
Editor in Chief - indieWIRE
While a student at UCLA, I programmed the campus' film series and utlimately headed the UCLA Campus Events Commission - the office responsible for producing concerts, lectures and screenings. After a brief stint working in Hollywood, I spent five years at ABC-TV in the company's expanding Multimedia division. I am currently working with the Network and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a producer of Oscar.com.