Dances With Films: LA announced its Filmmaker Award winners during a jubilant celebration at The TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood following the 27th edition of Los Angeles’ leading indie film festival. The Grand Jury Prizewinners were led by Michael Groom’s Between the Lights(Best Narrative Feature) and Leon Lozano’s A Little Hope For Chicago. Heading the list of Audience Choice winners were Ori Yardeni and Emil Ben. Shimon’s The Man Who Saved the Internet With a Sunflower(Best Narrative Feature), and Rebecca Corry’s Saving Jones(Best Documentary Feature).
DWF’s coveted Industry Choice Awards went to Matthew Leutwyler’s Fight Like A Girl in the “Over 40 Minutes” category, and Peter Decherney’s Is It Because I’m A Girl in the “Under 40 Minutes” category. Fight Like A Girl, Is It Because I’m A Girl.
Dances With Films’ Founders Leslee Scallon and Michael Trent, said “In our 27th year, we were struck by the awareness of how our DWF filmmaker family continues to grow exponentially with such an amazingly diverse array of talented artists. As this film festival continues to be dedicated to the mission of supporting them with a singular focus on celebrating and promoting truly independently produced films and projects, we also continue to be humbled seeing all of them form such a tight-knit community too.
”Additional Audience Choice Award winners were Devin Lawrence’s The Disinvited (Fusion Feature), Christian Klein’s Bed By 9(Downbeat), K.D. Chalk’s Survived By(Dances With Kidz Pro), and Reece Melber and Rachel Othon’s Exposed(Pilots). In the Short Film categories, Audience Choice Awards went to Craig Newman’s I Approve This Message (Narrative), Samantha Ramirez-Hererra’s El Regreso (Documentary), and Daniel Rashid’s Puppy Love (Fusion).
A new edition to Dances With Films this year was the Fever Pitch Short Script Challenge, which was won by Sean Cage’s pitch for his project “Judas Kiss”. Runner ups in the competition were Antjuan Ward’s “In The Pocket”, and Ed Lawrence Robinson’s “Merry Christmas, Colonel Shoup”. Cage received $500 for his winning pitch, while Ward and Robinson will each receive $250. In the Grand Jury Prize competitions, Honorable Mentions went to Jack McCafferty’s Dreaming of You,and Brendan Boogie’s Tallywacker (Narrative), as well as Bill Guttentag’s Spyral (Documentary).
The DWF: LA’s lineup of 232 films, included 117 making world, international, North American, or U.S. premieres in the heart of Hollywood. Three films (Etana Jacobsen’s Advanced Chemistry, Haroula Rose’s All Happy Families, and Verner Maldonado’s Best Man Dead Man announced distribution deals during the film festival.
Book ended by full house Gala screenings of Mahesh Pailoor’s Paper Flowers(Opening Night) and Terre Weisman’s Max Dagan(Closing Night), Dances With Films: LA kept both the theaters and the Chinese Theater’s lobby filled and hopping with filmmakers and film fans including seven Orange Carpet events over the course of the film festival’s ten days of screenings and panels. In addition to the award winners, crowd pleasers included Patrick Van Zandt’s Addy Daddy, Nayip Ramos’ Almost Popular, Benjamin-Shalom Rodriguez’s America’s Next Top Immigrant, Stanley Wong’s Future Date, and Jean Barker’s Nobody Leaves ’til Jesus Comes. Additional crowd favorites among the documentaries included Alex Lamb and Max Well’s The Donn of Tiki, and Razieme Iborra’s How the West Was One. Iborra actually arrived at The Chinese Theater on horseback, making an entrance unmatched by any other filmmaker.
Dances With Films will next return for its 3rd New York City edition in December. For more information about Dances With Films, please go to: https://danceswithfilms.com/.
Photos are courtesy of Dances with Films
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Fight like a girl is the best movie