SILVERDOCS 2009
This was originally published on the Shooting People Festival Focus blog.
I had the privilege of being on the Sterling Short Film Jury at SILVERDOCS, along with Angela Tucker and Bryan Stamp. The films were superb, Angela and Bryan were fantastic fellow jurors and Sky Sitney and the entire SILVERDOCS staff did a really impressive job this year. We awarded the shorts prize to 12 Notes Down by Andreas Koefoed, a beautiful and moving portrait of talent, music and adolescence. We also felt compelled to give an honorary mention to Michael Angus and Murray Fredericks for the cinematic Salt, which follows photographer Fredericks as he works on his lonely and awesome (I mean this in the literal sense) photos in the remote salt flats of Australia.
Other big winners were October Country by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher (good friends and super-talented filmmakers) and Mugabe and the White African by Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson. Congrats to Luciano Blotta for winning a music documentary award for Riseup, a very accomplished and enjoyable film about contemporary reggae mucians in Jamaica that I really hope more people will get the chance to see. You can see the full list of winners here. Audience awards went to The Cove and 12 Notes Down.
Here are some photos from my adventures in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Albert Maysles is honored at the Guggenheim Symposium
Debbie Zimmerman, Simon Kilmurry and Danielle DiGiacomo
AJ Schnack shows how it’s done. King of Karaoke Michael Lerman is behind him.
Trish Dalton and Brendan Canty enjoy nuclear drinks
The audience sing along
The rocking short film jury at the awards ceremony: me, Angela Tucker, Bryan Stamp
Juror Margaret Brown flanked by October Country award-winners Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri
Ion gets political with the ladeeeeeees…
…while Pamela Cohn shares a moment with Obama
Yoav Shamir opens a bottle of bubbly for us
Michael Palmieri, Sandi DuBowski and Donal Mosher show me their tonsils