This was my first year covering AFI Fest, and also my first time covering a virtual festival during the festival itself. It was a positive experience on both fronts, and the viewing platform I used – the AFI Fest app for Roku – worked pretty well and including plenty of interesting conversations with talent.
AFI announced the following winners:
Audience Award - Narrative Feature WOLFWALKERS (DIR Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)
Audience Award - Documentary Feature 76 DAYS (DIR Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous)
Audience Award - Short Film LONELY BLUE NIGHT (DIR Johnson Cheng)
Grand Jury Prize – Animation TIGER AND OX (호랑이와 소) (DIR Seunghee Kim)
Grand Jury Prize – Live Action PILLARS (DIR Haley Elizabeth Anderson)
Special Mention - BLACK GOAT (DIR Yi Tang)
Special Mention MAALBEEK (DIR Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis)
Special Mention UMBILICAL (DIR Danski Tang)
I personally had the chance to screen 17 films, which represent a third of the features shown. I also saw 6 of the other films at Sundance, but it hardly seems fair to include some of my favorites, like Nine Days and Farewell Amor, in this piece since I already cited them in my Sundance wrap. Without further ado, I submit my choices for the best of this year’s AFI Fest...
Abe’s 'Jury-of-One' Top Five AFI Fest 2020 Films
- Sound of Metal – a heavy metal drummer loses his hearing (coming to Amazon Prime on Dec 4th)
Wolfwalkers – an animated gem from Irish studio Cartoon Saloon (coming to Apple TV Plus on Dec 11th) - Whirlybird – a documentary about a husband-and-wife television journalism duo with a helicopter
- I Carry You with Me – a romance about a gay man in Mexico and the choices he must make (scheduled for release by Sony Pictures Classics on Jan 8th)
- My Donkey, My Lover and I – a light comedy about a teacher who follows her married lover and his family on a hiking trip
Best Director: Heidi Ewing (I Carry You with Me)
Best Actor: Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)
Best Actress: Laure Calamy (My Donkey, My Lover and I)
Best Supporting Actor: Jens Albinus (My Little Sister)
Best Supporting Actress: Marsha Stephanie Blake (I’m Your Woman)
Best Screenplay: Sound of Metal
Best Cinematography: I Carry You with Me
Best Ensemble Cast: Pink Skies Ahead
Special Award for Worst Movie: Shadow in the Cloud*
*There is a certain level of quality I expect from any project selected to play at a film festival. That is nowhere to be found in what’s billed as a “thrilling nightmare in the sky” and an “exciting horror film” starring Chloë Grace Moretz as a female pilot during WWII. It’s neither of those things and often feels like it has to be making fun of itself because it couldn’t intentionally be that bad.
I still have a few films left to screen from NewFest and will be back next week with my best of that fest.
Have you ever attended AFI Fest? Which movies are you most exciting to see this year from their lineup?