Fourteen productions are nominees for Best of Festival in the 2018 US International Film & Video Festival. Nominees were chosen in three categories: Corporate, Entertainment and Documentary. Winners will be announced June 5.
Nominees in Corporate are:
- Shell International, London, United Kingdom, for "Coralee's Story," a production that follows an oil company employee through a tragic accident. The employee suffered a fall down a flight of stairs resulting in paralysis.
- Zilant Pro, Kazan, Russia, for "Commercial Upgrade Project in MEGA Kazan," done for MEGA Kazan. A first-time effort for a company results in a beautifully upgraded 1.3 million sq. ft. super regional shopping mall that saw 15 million customers last year in its 170 stores, ice rink and kids playground.
- Donna Lawrence Productions, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, for "Washington's War Tent," done for the Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Gen. George Washing prepares the various distrustful factions of his army for war with the British Crown.
- LBL Production (FreeMotion Group), Moscow, Russia, for "Destination Tobolsk," done for Sibur. ZapSibNeftehim, Tobolsk, Russia. Sibur, a Russian gas processing and petrochemical company, portrays its problem-solving abilities with a plastics manufacturing plant constructed in Siberia, resulting in vast difficulties in transporting very large pieces of equipment across the frozen wastes.
- Mountain View Group Ltd., Atlanta, Georgia, USA, for "The Future of X-Ray," done for GE Healthcare. Reduced waste, reduced errors and ease of collaboration are all part of the next generation of x-ray systems.
- Omnicron Productions, Auckland, New Zealand, Australia, for "Platform," done for ACROW, Auckland, the country's largest scaffolding, formwork and falsework company. This is the company's quarterly 15-minute update on its most interesting scaffolding projects.
Entertainment nominees are:
- Pacific Television, London, United Kingdom, for the “Deli Deliberation” segment of the “Pioneer Woman,” done for Food Network, New York, NY, USA.
- Radio Television Hong Kong, Hong Kong, for "Sports For All – Freestyle Football. This film introduces freestyle football with Lyson Sze, a Hong Kong representative of this sport of difficult tricks and moves with a soccer ball, which encourages activity for youth and presents a positive image of Hong Kong to the international community.
- Radio Television Hong Kong, Hong Kong, for "Sports For All – Synchronised Swimming." The Synchronised Swimming Squad of Hong Kong and its coach Rosita Tse introduce a fun and graceful sport suitable for all ages, though it may take years to perfect.
Nominees in Documentary include:
- 90th Parallel Productions Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for "The Tea Explorer," the story of a Canadian explorer, Jeff Fuchs. He is obsessed with mountains and tea and his travels and education on the ancient Teahorse Road in the Himalayas.
- Light Image Productions, Adelaide, SA, Australia, for "WineLine 2 – Odyssey." The film traces eight generations of the famous Hamilton wine family from 1838 forward.
- NHK, Tokyo, Japan, for "Unit 731: Elite Doctors and Human Experimentation" retraces the experimentation on Chinese and Manchurian prisoners with typhoid and plague pathogens during the Sino-Japanese War. NHK located 20 hours of audio tapes from a 1949 war crimes tribunal and used them as a basis for this disturbing film.
- Donna Lawrence Productions, Louisville, KY, USA, for "We Rise," done for the New York Historical Society Center for Women's History. This film describes the women's social justice movements in the early 20th century in New York City, where artists, writers and other social justice warriors took to the streets and to the city's publications to demand rights for those who struggled with inequality and its outcomes.
- Terra Mater Factual Studios GmbH, Vienna, Austria, for "The Lions Rule: EP1 – Death in the Glade," done in co-production with Doclights/NDR Naturfilm and National Geographic Channel. The ebb and flow of life in ancient Africa seen through the lives of its lion prides, who pursue their prey and are themselves pursued by their own kind.
The One World Award will also be released June 5. It is sponsored by the International quorum of Motion Picture Producers (IQ) honoring a production that fosters world understanding. General winners can currently be seen at www.filmfestawards.com.
The US International Film & Video Festival is an independent festival that has been in operation since 1967.
