The 11th annual Annapolis Film Festival announced its award winners. Maryland Hall held the glamorous ceremony. Festival co-founders Lee Anderson and Patti White gave opening remarks. They spoke about the value of independent award shows and the importance of films. This film festival enticed diverse community members.
Film Festival
‘Women Talking’ Communicated The Urgency for Women’s Rights at Athena Film Festival
A close-up of a woman’s bare legs appeared on the screen. She wore a thin, floral nightgown. Dry blood depicted the sheer physical and emotional pain. In the intense scene, she screamed. Another woman rushed in with a towel to wipe the blood away. The fictional film ‘Women Talking’ (2022) communicated the ongoing need for women’s liberation.
The Show Must Go On As 2023 Mammoth Film Festival Braves Record-Breaking Blizzard
Led by Tanner Beard, Tomik Mansoori, Theo Dumont, Alexandra Chando, Nicole Castro, Alexandra Lasky, and Evan Weissman, the Mammoth Film Festival’s international reach has grown considerably since its inception in 2018. Wild7Films sponsored the event and premiered two of their own projects, Better Daze and Tree of Life.
Celebrity Competitors Rally Together for a Good Cause With the Return of Celebrity Charity Bowling Tournament, Plus List of Winners
The conclusion of the Mammoth Film Festival’s fourth day brought the grand return of the Celebrity Charity Bowling Tournament, an attendee favorite where celebrity competitors rally together for a good cause. Proceeds from the tournament benefited the Mammoth Media Institute, an organization that utilizes the mountain town to bring independent film and television, VR, documentaries, film education, and more to the public including industry professionals, distributors, producers, and financiers.
First Time Filmmaker Spotlight Shines on the Duel, Starring Dylan Sprouse, Patrick Warburton
The second day of the Mammoth Film Festival had a red carpet lined with special talent alongside producers, writers, and directors. One of the few festivals to do so, Mammoth Film Festival includes a ‘First Time Filmmaker Spotlight,’ which highlights the inaugural work of actors-turned-directors.
Elevation Squared: Zooz Group cultivates a one of a kind experience at a one of a kind festival
At 7,000 feet of elevation, and a top space on any filmmaker’s bucket list, Sundance is already an elevated festival. Revered, renowned, and revolutionary, Sundance is ground zero (but at thousands of feet above sea level) for independent films and those that love them.
NYC based LGBTQ+ film festival, NewFest, teamed up with Netflix to create the New Voices Filmmakers Grant. Four recipients, Blanche Akonchong, Livia Huang, Rodney Llaverias and Nyla Moon, were honored at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn on October 17.
Winners of $25,000 each and a year of mentorship, the filmmakers gathered for a panel to discuss their films and journey’s thus far.
Blanche Akonchong directed “Mercury Afrograde,” a film depicting a family’s struggle when their secrets are revealed during mercury retrograde. “I edited it, colored it, I composed the music,” Akonchong told the Knockturnal. “I literally spent the whole first quarter of the pandemic just working on it. It was my catharsis.” The film received NewFest’s Emerging Black LGBTQ+ Director Award in 2020. Blanche is an actor, writer, director and musician who hails from Riverdale, Georgia with Cameroonian roots.
New York native filmmaker and actor, Nyla Moon, created “How Not to Date While Trans.” “I realized that there wasn’t a lot of stories by trans women about the trans experience,” Moon noted. “This is such a fun film and it’s like a love story to the trans community because everyone always talks about our experiences but they don’t listen to us, so I wanted to create this story so people could understand what it’s like actually dating as a trans person.” With this accomplishment, Moon continues to produce and act in more original works.
Working on the development of their first feature film while living between the Dominican Republic and Bogota, filmmaker Rodney Llaverias won the New Fest prize for “The Two-Headed Calf.” In the film, the protagonist comes to terms with their sexuality; a monumental event for most audiences don’t get to see from the queer point of view. “I really wanted to tell this story,” Llaverias admitted on the panel. “I had a very late flourishing when it came to my sexuality (…) I was really tapping into my past, my past traumas; I really wanted to talk about my relationship with my father and what that meant for me.”
“More Happiness,” by Livia Huang also explored parental relationships. “I think we all have evolving relationships with our mothers,” Huang said. “I just had these conversations that I couldn’t really let go of, and ‘More Happiness’ has this conversation with a real mother and daughter pair interspersed with the protagonist’s past memories about the past love affair with her ex girlfriend.” Huang, a Baltimore bred director, created the film as a thesis for Brooklyn College, two years ago.
Creating safe havens for queer communities since 1988, New Fest also dedicated the evening to celebrating thriving artists including Big Mouth’s Brandon Kyle Goodman, Wendell & Wild’s Sam Zelaya and Dead End: Paranormal Park’s; Zach Barack.