/award winners spring 2017

​

Best Narrative Feature Film: Halumim / Beneath the Silence (Israel) by Erez Mizrahi and Sahar Shavit. 1973, a small family crumbles due to the father’s PTSD, on the verge of the Yom Kipur War.
 

Best Documentary Feature Film: Chosen (Custody of the Eyes) (United States) by Abbie Reese. Set within the Corpus Christi Monastery in Rockford, Illinois, "Chosen (Custody of the Eyes)" forms an intimate portrait of Heather*, a former blogger and painter confronting what she believes is her calling: Becoming a cloistered contemplative nun in one of the strictest religious orders. "Chosen" is a coming-of-age story by first-time filmmaker Abbie Reese in collaboration with "Heather," who became the film's primary cinematographer. The Novice Mistress deemed this project a "once in a lifetime" occurrence — permitting a video camera to capture monastic life from the inside. *She selected the alias "Heather" to reflect the Poor Clare Colettine pursuit of anonymity.

Best Narrative Short Film: WALLS (Germany) by Maik Schuster and Max Paschke. A short film dealing with the energy generated through human confrontations with walls. The urge for freedom and fulfillment is just as human as the urge to build walls for everyday order. Three individuals in different countries are struggling under this tension - and finally decide to go all in. The soundtrack features music by rising french producer Phazz.

Best Documentary Short Film: The Boxer (Netherlands) by Ruben van Leer. Frank Engel is a boxer by day and a tenor singer by night. In a fight with himself, he conquers his biggest fear: to let his voice be heard in the opera to a large audience. The film is a fictionalised short drama piece, starring real-life character Frank Engel, shot during an actual opera performance in the Dutch National Opera and featuring a poem by acclaimed street-poet and voice artist Johnny Bang Reilly.

​

Best Animated Short Film: Don’t cry (Japan) by Tomoya Takashima. A story of people living in a world prohibited from giving birth. Sci-Fi Thriller animation. In this era, artificial intelligence, AI has come to power. Birthing limits were implemented in order to manage the AI population that has grown too much. Although AI’s threatening, illegal birth laws are no end of mankind’s desire. The parents and children would be killed if exposed by government. The couple are heading the port toward the resistance force called the ‘Human Tribe’to save the children. AI was approaching behind them.
 

Best Experimental Film: Atlas (United States) by Shannon Leah Collis. A series of short audio-visual projections using time-lapse photography, digital video and sound processing techniques to explore parallels between light, gesture and abstract form. This work is based on research in early drawn-sound techniques used for musical score analysis and sound-on-film processes (e.g. Norman McLaren’s animated films, and Oskar Fischinger’s ornamental sound experiments of 1932).
 

Best Australian Cinema Now: Shiver by Damian Overton. “In the darkness of the night, Riley returns to the broke down and desolate part of the city he once inhabited. Riley, a young drifter, searches for a new future among the violent and unforgiving ruins of the past.”