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Benjamin F. Barnett
Festival Director
Philadelphia Independent Film Festival 4
Philadelphia Independent Film Festival Best of Festival recipients 2011:
Posted: v o2
Best Feature – From The Head (91min) (Comedy, Drama) Dir. George Griffith. On his third anniversary as a bathroom attendant in a New York City strip club, SHOES sees the same idiosyncratic characters that have flooded his porcelain kingdom for years. But before this shift is over, Shoes will discover that things have changed, and it’s no longer “same tits, different day.”
Honorable Mention - Rachel & Diana (76min) (Drama) Dir. Dave Janetta. "Rachel & Diana" is the story of one young woman's search for perspective and clarity in a modern, digital world. When an unexpected package arrives in the mail shedding new light on her past she takes to the highway.
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Best Political Documentary - Zielinski (66min) (Politics / Documentary) Dir. Chase Thompson / Ryan Walker. By 1983 John Zielinski was a well-known author and photographer. His work had appeared in Life Magazine, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and countless other publications. But in a devastating 1984 contract dispute, he lost $50,000 and his professional credibility.
Honorable Mention - - A Hitler (min) The film, by writer/director Barry J. Hershey, is a phantasmagoric journey into the darkest recesses of the mind of Adolf Hitler. In a dreamlike subterranean environment removed from historical time, Adolf Hitler confronts the demons of his psyche. As he dictates his memoirs, Hitler encounters apparitions of his fiendish confidant, Joseph Goebbels; his enigmatic mistress, Eva Braun; the mastermind of his military campaigns, Hermann Goering; Jewish psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud; and a mysterious Woman in Black.
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Best Short - Bathing and the Single Girl (11min) (Underground Romance). Dir. Christine Elise McCarthy. A raw & irreverent comedic look at the unspoken horrors of dating - and bathing with - younger men.
Honorable Mention - The Pond (19min) Dir. Dan Hannon. Shelly, a young woman distraught over the death of her husband, sets about scattering his ashes on the pond in an apple orchard they had both loved. But the waters of the pond hold a secret, and when a stranger appears unexpectedly, she learns the truth about this stunning locale.
Honorable Mention - - Blink of an Eye (Augenblicke) (Germany) (19min) (Thriller). Dir. Martin Bargiel. In the middle of the night a fight between Schenker’s neighbors won’t let him rest. Half asleep his mind is playing tricks on him: constantly he awakes in different places. Now he has to face questioning by an inspector about a dead woman, and his nightmare begins.
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Best Documentary Virtual JFK - What if JFK had never been assassinated? (91min) (Documentary) Dir. Koji Masutani ’05 (Watson Visiting Fellow ) Watson Professor Jim Blight and Adjunct Associate Professor Janet M. Lang have been focusing their research on this question and on the lessons that revisiting the Vietnam War could provide for contemporary US policy.
Honorable Mention -- Schooling the World The White Mans Last Burdon (65min) (Documentary) Dir. Carol Black. If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates it’s children.
Best Doc Short: - Voices of Sculpture (30min) (Documentary) Dir. David Steele. Featuring some of the most important and innovative sculptures and sculptors of the modern art world, Voices of Sculpture is a tour DE force documentary exploring the role and interrelationship of art, artist and observer. Set in the unique Grounds For Sculpture located near Princeton N.J., the film tells the story of Seward Johnson's founding and development of this extraordinary venue for the arts and explores the sustaining spirit that made it grow into being.
Best Real Time Documentary - Cure for the Crash - The Art of Train Hoppin (91min) (Doc / Narrative) Dir. Brian Paul Higgens. Just beyond the tracks and the world you find familiar, endures a freedom found on the edges of American excess. I traveled these outer limits via the art of hopping freight trains with a photographer named Sepher and a brave women named Ruin. We rode through mountains, over clear meadows, near hidden canyons, along sprawling farms and countless other American...
Best Music Documentary – - Meet Me on South Street - History of J. C. Dobbs (50min) (Music Documentary) Dir. George Manney. Meet Me On South Street, The Story of JC Dobbs documents, the evolution of Philadelphia's fertile music and arts subculture in the 1970's until the sad closing of JC Dobbs in 1996. Between the gritty walls and dressing room grandeur, to the mystique and dysfunctional family-like workplace, what was once the club in Philly known for live music seven nights a week, showcasing artists in the infancy of their rising careers, JC Dobbs was Philadelphia's premiere rock & roll bar!
Honorable Mention ToddStock (91min) (Music Documentary). Dir. Todd Rundgren, Ed Vigdor. Camping out at Todd’s house for his 60th birthday. Toddstock was born.
Honorable Mention - BEATBOXING - THE FIFTH ELEMENT OF HIP HOP (55m, U S A)
Dir. by Klaus Schneyder The undocumented 5th element of HipHop. Beatboxing.
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Best Comedy – - Big Guns Big Guns: (85 mins) (Comedy) Dir. Chris McDonnel. The world's worst cop gets fired and for reasons unknown becomes the target of every criminal in town. As a PI he must overcome incompetence and several character defects to solve the case and save his life.
Honorable Mention - Frontman (104min) (Comedy) Dir. Ben Hyland. When the former frontman of 'Stanley and the Knives' suddenly dies his old friends and band mates are forced back together after twenty-five years apart. Cracks soon start to appear in their relationships and it becomes clear why they split up in the first place. Frontman is a musical journey of five strangers, becoming friends for the second time.
Best Comedy Short - Gratitude (21 min) (Drama/Surreal). Dir. Cyrus Mirakhor. A harried chef learns about cooking and hard choices from a talking fish.
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Best Thriller / Crime / Drama Hamesima X (91min) (Israel) Dir. Or Yashar & Yuval Ovadia. A man is sent to Earth on a mysterious mission and caught trying to infiltrate the Mossad's most highly classified facility. During an intensive interrogation, instead of getting the information he was hoping for, the Mossad's investigator is surprised to be given mystical information and Kabalistic secrets.
Honorable Mention - Murdered - Intersecting Memoires (60min) (Crime) Dir. Terance Ross. MURDERED, intersecting memoirs is an experimental single author movie. It is a cinema/literature fusion and is part of an interactive site best experienced by going to murderedtheweb.com.
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Best Art House - Hunger (min) (Art House / Mystery) Dir. A typical dinner with friends where their secret desires are anything but. (French: Un dîner typique avec les amis où leurs désirs secrets sont tout sauf.)
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Best Foreign : Chasing Che (78m, Iran) Dir. by Alireza Rofougaran One mans journey to follow the footsteps of his hero, Che Guevera while he translates his history into Farsi.
Honorable Mention -DILLI (25m, India) Dir. by Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas. What happens when you relocate 2 million people to nowhere?
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Best Horror – Summer of Massacre. (78min) (Horror) Dir. Joe Castro. This movie is insane, actually insane is an understatement. It's a 100 MPH gore ride that never slows down. This film offers you not 1 but 8 maniacal, terrifying, relentless, and unstoppable killers. Prepare yourself for a body count so high, so bloody, so shocking, it is unlike anything have ever seen… in the history of slasher films.
Philadelphia Independent Film Festival 2011 Award Recipients.
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