The Festival closed Sunday evening with the U.S. premiere of THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING straight from its world premiere at Toronto. Prior to the screening, CIFF hosted its annual Awards Ceremony, presenting four awards for documentary features and one for a documentary short, in addition to its Points North Pitch Award and three grants awarded through a partnership with the Conservation Media Group.
CIFF partnered this year with the Conservation Media Group on the CMG Action Grant Pitch, open to projects from filmmakers and organizations alike that used video to create measurable action in ocean conservation or sustainable energy. With the strength of this inaugural class of applicants, CMG chose to award grants to not one but three projects.
- SUNCATCHER, Shalina Kantayya (7th Empire Media) – $10,000
- PICK IT UP!, Razan Ghalayini – $6,000
- A TALE OF PLASTIC, Tierney Thys & Noe Sardet (Parafilms) – $10,000
CIFF and long-time partner Documentary Educational Resources launched a new award at the 2015 festival: the John Marshall Award for Contemporary Ethnographic Media. The competition included eight contemporary titles screening in the main slate alongside historic ethnographic work in Being There, a sidebar supported by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The 2015 John Marshall Award went to Anna Roussillon’s I AM THE PEOPLE (JE SUIS LE PEUPLE).
CIFF continued to champion short films in the 2015 edition. Each year it showcases the Cinema Eye Honors Shorts nominees which were announced last week from Camden. CIFF partnered with the Boston-based Non-Fiction Cartel to award the Camden Cartel Award for Best Short to Paulina Skibinska’s OBJECT, with Special Jury mention going to Eleanor Mortimer’s TERRITORY.
Jurors Turner Ross (Co-Director, WESTERN), Eric Hynes (Film Comment) and Charlotte Selb (RIDM) awarded the 2015 Emerging Cinematic Vision Award to Anna Roussillon’s I AM THE PEOPLE (JE SUIS LE PEUPLE), with Special Jury Mention going to Morgan Knibbe’s THOSE WHO FEEL THE FIRE BURNING.
This year’s jury of Janet Pierson (SXSW), Jason Osder (Director, LET THE FIRE BURN) and Charlie Phillips (The Guardian) awarded the 2015 Harrell Award for Best Documentary Feature to Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli’s FRAME BY FRAME, with Special Jury Mention going to Alexandre Nanau’s TOTO AND HIS SISTERS.
The 2015 Camden International Film Festival Audience Award sponsored by Ann and Dick Costello went to Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s BEST OF ENEMIES.
On Saturday at the annual Dowling Walsh Gallery Reception, sponsored by CNN Films, CIFF announced the winner of the 2015 Points North Pitch Award and Modulus Finishing Fund, which went to GREYWATER, directed and produced by Jeff Unay. GREYWATER was also a participant in CIFF’s inaugural Camden/Tribeca Film Institute Retreat presented by CNN this past June. CIFF will continue to support all six selected Points North Fellowship projects at the Cinema Eye Honors in January 2016.
