Jury and Audience Awards bestowed on final day of 2015 festival
AFI Fest 2015 announced the feature and short films receiving this year’s Jury and Audience Awards. The New Auteurs Grand Jury Award was presented today (11/12) to Land and Shade, while Disorder garnered a Special Jury Mention for Direction, and Desde Alla scored a Special Jury Mention for Screenplay. Boys received the Grand Jury Award for Live Action Short, and World of Tomorrow earned the Grand Jury Award for Animated Short. This year’s Audience Award recipients in the New Auteurs, World Cinema and Breakthrough sections included Mustang, James White and Ma.
The Jury Awards honored works from the New Auteurs section, which highlighted 11 films from first and second-time feature film directors, and the Shorts section, which included 53 films representing diverse international perspectives. The Audience Award winners were selected from among 54 films in these festival sections: American Independents, Breakthrough, New Auteurs and World Cinema.
Here’s a rundown of AFI Fest winners:
NEW AUTEURS AWARDS
New Auteurs Grand Jury Award: Land and Shade (DIR César Augusto Acevedo)
Jury Statement: “For its visual eloquence, formal rigor and emotional power, the New Auteurs Grand Jury Award goes to Land and Shade. Its observations of economic exploitation and environmental degradation are as incisive as its characters are fully realized. Writer/director César Augusto Acevedo’s debut feature is an indelible portrait of a family in rural Colombia, told with unwavering compassion and Bressonian grace.”
Special Jury Mention for Direction: Disorder (DIR Alice Winocour)
Jury Statement: “For the taut and muscular direction of her viscerally entertaining thriller Disorder, the jury recognizes writer/director Alice Winocour with a Special Jury Mention. Through precise execution of her material, Winocour subverts expectations commonly associated with genre films to deliver a bracing experience that stuns and surprises.”
Special Jury Mention for Screenplay: Desde Alla (DIR/SCR Lorenzo Vigas)
Jury Statement: “A tense, sensitive and unpredictable exploration of an improbable but emotionally believable relationship, the screenplay for Desde Alla merits a Special Jury Mention for its heartbreaking characters and its keen insights into the prejudices, alienation, social divides and desperate need for control that allow love to both bloom and wither.”
GRAND JURY AWARDS, LIVE ACTION AND ANIMATED SHORT
Grand Jury winners in the Shorts categories are eligible for Academy Award consideration.
Grand Jury Award for Live Action Short: Boys (DIR Isabella Carbonell)
Jury Statement: “This film tackles the abominable with courage, confidence and dignity. It shows us humanity in the places where we would least expect to find it.”
Grand Jury Award for Animated Short: World Of Tomorrow (DIR Don Hertzfeldt)
Jury Statement: “Funny. Scary. Heartbreaking. Original. And beautiful. This film hit us all hard.”
Live Action Short Special Mention for Innovative Storytelling: Rate Me (DIR Fyzal Boulifa)
Jury Statement: “This film pushes the boundaries not only of filmmaking technique but also social convention.”
Live Action Short Special Mention for Nonfiction Filmmaking: The Reagan Shorts — Ronald Reagan Light The Lights, Ronald Reagan Pardons a Turkey, Maryland Public Television Interviews The Reagans (DIR Pacho Velez)
Jury Statement: “By selecting and editing these gems from years worth of archival footage, these shorts shine a light on the marriage of politics and performance.”
Animated Short Special Jury Mention for Screenwriting: Teeth (DIRS Tom Brown, Daniel Gray)
Jury Statement: “This film has many merits, but we were struck most by its sharp wit, character and spirit.”
Animated Short Special Jury Mention for Creative Vision: Manoman (DIR Simon Cartwright)
Jury Statement: “This film creates a world unlike any we’ve seen before. It was a privilege to have been invited in.”
AUDIENCE AWARDS
World Cinema Audience Award: Landfill Harmonic (DIRS Brad Allgood, Graham Townsley, Juliana Penaranda-Loftus)
New Auteurs Audience Award: Mustang (DIR Deniz Gamze Ergüven)
American Independents Audience Award: James White (DIR Josh Mond)
Breakthrough Audience Award: Ma (DIR Celia Rowlson-Hall)
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More