2008 Florida Film Festival Awards
Blackbird, Were the World Mine, In Search of a Midnight Kiss Win Big
At the Awards Ceremony for the 17th Annual Florida Film Festival, narrative features, documentaries, and shorts won from 160 film selections.
This year’s entries came from more than 20 countries and included two world premieres and seven East Coast premieres at the annual Orlando event produced by Enzian Theater.
And the Winners Are
In the narrative features category, the dark love story Blackbird directed by Adam Rapp won a special jury award for direction, and the Jet Blue audience award went to Tom Gustafson's gay musical Were the World Mine. The grand jury award for best narrative feature in the American Independent Competition was given to In Search of a Midnight Kiss, a frantic New Year’s Eve quest directed by Alex Holdridge.
In the documentary category, a special jury award for bold truth in a documentary feature went to director Jeremy Zerechak’s Land of Confusion, which described his National Guard unit’s experience in Iraq, and the Jet Blue audience award was given to Pageant, a look inside the Miss Gay America Pageant directed by Ron Davis and Stewart Halpern. Operation Filmmaker, Nina Davenport’s look at a Baghdad film student, took the grand jury award for best documentary feature.
Awards for the shorts division: A special jury prize for best ensemble acting was given to A Day’s Work; the grand jury prize for best narrative short was awarded to Man; the grand jury award for best animated short went to Teat Beat of Sex; the best short subject documentary winner was My Olympic Summer; and the Jet Blue audience award went to Hole in the Paper Sky.
Other Florida Film Festival Highlights
Actress Jennifer Tilly, best known for her roles in Bullets Over Broadway, Family Guy, Monsters Inc., Bride of Chucky, Key West, and The Fabulous Baker Boys, also was on hand at the awards and wrap party to receive an artistic achievement award for her diverse body of work. Don Mancini, writer of the Chucky movie series, introduced the actress by highlighting her extensive voiceover work and long list of on-screen lovers, including his murderous Chucky doll.
The festival also included non-competing entries in Spotlight Films (advance screenings), Florida Sidebar (films from new Florida’s filmmakers), Midnight Shorts (a raunchy collection of animation and live-action), Music Sidebar (collaboration of music and film), and Retro Films (Rosemary’s Baby and other classic movies). Festival sponsor Full Sail Real World Education brought in actor Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Time After Time) to participate in a special afternoon presentation that packed the large auditorium.
To learn more about film festivals, read Film Festival Screenings and How to Find a Distributor.
