Nashville Awards: Andrew Haigh's "Weekend" and More...

Jury Deliberations. Most festivals have separate jurors for each of the major sections. Cannes is the one people are most familiar with it being the festival of festivals. The competition slate is the main focus but they don't actually decide each of the awards you hear about. There are other juries gathered to decide things like the Camera D'Or (best first film) and the short film prizes. Nashville has five juries and they're also an AMPAS qualifying festival so if, for instance, a short film wins "best" in category here it becomes eligible for Oscar consideration. I was on the Narrative Competition jury this year. The running joke at the table became "this doesn't leave the table..." so...end of story!

Let it suffice to say that it's always usually enjoyable to discuss movies with other creative types and in this case it was extra enjoyable as my fellow jurors Dan Butler (previous discussed) and Joe Leydon (a Texas based film critic who also writes for Variety) were both fun passionate movie-loving guys.

After we decided our prizes, I scampered over to the Music Film jury when I saw them wrapping up to thank the gorgeous Kimberly Reed for her Prodigal Sons film the one I kept raving about to y'all a couple of years back. She told me about a new percolating project of hers but she's actually still trekking around the country with her breakthrough film years later. Oprah's interest in her story really made a huge impact -- Oprah really does control the world, doesn't she? -- but that kind of sustained interest couldn't have happened to a better documentary or to a more articulate champion for the transgendered community.

BEST OF THE 2011 NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Read on to find out which films each jury loved as well as a few notes on the films.

NARRATIVE
Competition sponsored by Bridgestone
Grand Jury Prize: "Weekend"by Andrew Haigh (UK)
Honorable Mention: "The Last Summer of La Boyita" by Julia Solomonoff (Argentina)
Best Actor: Tom Cullen in "Weekend"
Best Actress: Guadalupe Alonso in "The Last Summer of La Boyita"
Jury Prize for Ensemble Work: "Kinyarwanda" (Rwanda/USA)
Jury Prize for Bravery in Filmmaking: Hossein Keshavarz's "Dog Sweat" (Iran)
Naxos Award for Music: Bootstraps for "Take Me Home" 

We were asked to give a music award in addition to the regular awards because it's a Music City located festival though that prize was a bit hard to decide on, as were the acting categories. (As a whole the films in our section were more ensemble based or director's movies rather than acting showcases). We all admired what Tom Cullen managed in Weekend with an introverted character; unshowy acting rarely wins prizes but that doesn't mean subtle quiet arcs aren't worthy of praise. Weekend took Best Picture with ease. It does all the things well that no budget indies can thrive on (character work, intimacy, tightly focused themes and narrative) but it also has visual choices that feel purposeful and potent, rather than dictated by the needs of guerilla filmmaking... even if maybe they were. It was picked up for distribution by Sundance Selects -- that win at SXSW got the ball rolling -- so expect to see it at some point this year.

NEW DIRECTORS
Grand Jury Prize: Mike Magidson for "Inuk" (Greenland/France)
Honorable Mention: Jaroslave Fuit for "Twosome (Dvojka)" (Czech Republic)
Best Actor: Packer Croft, "Falling Overnight" (USA)
Best Actress: Kristýna Nováková, "Twosome" (Czech Republic)
Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performance by an Actor: Gaba Peterson, "Inuk"

DOCUMENTARY
Competition sponsored by the Documentary Channel
Grand Jury Prize: "If A Tree Falls" by Marshall Curry (USA)
Honorable Mention: "Fambul Tok" by Sara Terry and Sierra Leone (USA)
Special Jury Prize for Achievement Artistic Vision: "A Matter of Taste" by Sally Rowe (USA)

This always seem to happen to me at festivals. It's the luck of the draw. I saw both documentaries and a couple New Directors competitive films but none of the winners. So, alas, I can't comment.

MUSIC FILM
Sponsored by Gibson and Lightning 100
Impact of Music Award: "Ain’t In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm," (Jacob Hatley / USA)
Honorable Mention: "Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone" (Lev Anderson, Chris Metzler / USA)
Special Jury Prize for Most Original Vision: "Broke*" (Will Gray / USA)

SHORT FILMS
Best Narrative Short (Academy Qualifier): "Mary Last Seen" (Sean Durkin / USA)
Honorable Mention: "Darryn Exists" (Jamie Lawrence / New Zealand)
Best Animated Short (Academy Qualifier): "Something Left, Something Taken" (Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata / USA)
Honorable Mention: "Mobile" (Verena Fels / Germany)

Something Left, Something Taken- Full Version from Tiny Inventions on Vimeo.

Special Jury Prize for Imaginative Storytelling: "The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore" (Brandon Oldenburg, William Joyce / USA)
Best Documentary Short: "Bye Bye Now!" (Aideen O’Sullivan / Ireland)
Honorable Mention: "Mr. Happy Man" (Matt Morris / USA)
Special Jury Prize for Social Awareness: "Save the Farm" (Michael Kuehnert / USA)
Best Experimental Short: "All Flowers in Time" (Jonathan Caouette / Canada)
Honorable Mention: "Who By Fire" (Aleisa Moussa / USA)
Honorable Mention II: "just a meaning you attribute to it" (Bernadette Anzengruber / Austria)
Vanderbilt Golden Opportunity Award: "Deeper Than Yesterday" (Ariel Kleiman / Australia)
Runner-Up: "On Leave" (Asat Saban / Isreal)
Watkins Young Filmmaker Award: Finding My Way (Emma Strebel / USA)

director and cast of JESS+MOSS

OTHER AWARDS
Ground Zero Tennessee Spirit Award for Best Feature Film: "Jess+Moss" (Clay Jeter / USA)
Ground Zero Tennessee Spirit Award for Best Short Feature Film: "Swing" (Matt Schosser & Shane Bartlett / USA)
Ground Zero Tennessee Spirit Award for Best Short Documentary Film: "Nashville Rises" (Zac Adams / USA)
Black Filmmaker Award: "Kinyarwanda" (Alrick Brown / USA, Rwanda)
NAHCC Hispanic Filmmaker Award: “My Life with Carlos” (Germán Berger-Hertz / Chile)
NAHCC Hispanic Filmmaker Award Honorable Mention: “Musica Campesina” (Alberto Fuguet / Chile, USA)
NPT Human Spirit Award: "Fambul Tok" (Sara Terry / Sierra Leone, USA)
Women in Film & TV Prize for Best Film by A Woman Director: "The Last Summer of La Boyita" (Julia Solomonoff / Argentina)

I really enjoyed The Last Summer of La Boyita, an uncommonly sensitive coming-of-age film, so I was happy to see it recognized elsewhere too. The Argentinian film is about a young girl who, super annoyed with her suddenly boy crazy sister, spends the summer away at her doctor father's estate. She becomes tight friends with Mario, the son of "the help", both of them struggling with their rapidly changing bodies and ever more complex identities. It's a lovely film, beautifully shot with wonderfully natural child actor performances. Why are films made outside of the States always better at depicting childhood?

Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund Prize for Best Director / Composer Collaboration: "Falling Overnight"
NaFF Career Achievement Award: Kris Kristofferson
Coleman Sinking Creek Award: Monte Hellman
Mike Curb Career Achievement for Film Music: Gustavo Santaolalla
Governor's Award: Clay Jeter
Louise LeQuire Award for Screenwriting: John Patrick Shanley

Tomorrow I'll wrap up with this festival coverage with a few notes on familiar-faced actors I chatted with and films not yet discussed. Stay tuned.