Award Queen, a consultancy specializing in working with production companies and agencies to strategically enter advertising awards shows, has launched. Headquartered in New York, the company was founded by Ileana Montalvo. Award Queen launches with Biscuit Filmworks, for which Montalvo and her team will handle entries for all awards shows.
Montalvo was most recently AICP’s director of events, where she oversaw the production of the AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the American Commercial and the AICP Next Awards. In addition to producing the events and judging for each competition, including the annual Curatorial meetings, she also managed the entry process. “I noticed all too often opportunities were missed by entrants because the work was not placed to its best advantage.”
An industry vet, she knows all the pitfalls and crunches companies can encounter when entering the every-growing number of advertising awards shows. “I’ve created flexible services to help companies feel confident that their work is being presented in the best light – saving them time and money.”
Award Queen holds personalized discovery sessions with its clients to determine the best entry strategy for its work. Award Queen and its team collaborates with Provider Media postproduction services and EP/partner Joanne Ferraro to also create case studies and other entry assets.
Additional client announcements are expected soon.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More