Monday, December 10, 2012

AIFF 2012: My Choices For Awards

 
Let me list my choices first here with little comment and then I'll want to talk separately about some of the categories and why I differ, when I do, with the Festival's awards.

Table Cell Official Festival Awards My Choices
Features Winner: Lad: A Yorkshire Story Runner Up: Things I Don't Understand
Hon. Men:  Shouting Secrets
Winner: Between Us  and  Passionflower
Runner Up: Shouting Secrets

Documentaries Winner:  Roadmap to Apartheid
Runner Up: The World Before Her
Hon Men: Ping Pong
Winner:  Cutting Loose
Run. Up: Unfinished Spaces and Reportero*
Shorts Winner: Lapse
Runner Up:  Calcutta Taxi
Hon. Men:  Cockatoo
Winner:  Calcutta Taxi and Lapse
Runner Up:  Mossadegh and Suddenly Zinat
Animation Winner:  Paths of Hate
Runner Up: Lemons
Hon. Men:
Winner:  Much Better Now Runner Up: Lemons
Hon Men:  Paths of Hate
Supershorts Winner:  Her Next Door
Runner Up: Matriarche
Hon. Men:  Polarized
I'm ok with the first two, but the third did nothing for me.
Sundance Winner:  Rousseau's Children Runner Up: No Horizon AnymoreDidn't see enough to form an opinion.

In most cases trying to separate levels is questionable - though I feel strongly about Cutting Loose. I'll give some reasons for my choices in some separate posts.

[See What Makes A Good Documentary?  Cutting Loose and Ping Pong   I'll add a one or two more here as I get them up.]

One of the issues is comparing films with very different budgets and produced under different circumstances.   

 There were some 'in competition' films I missed - Grassroots in the feature category, The Trial of Ben Barry and Hunt in the shorts category, and Y.E.R.T.  in the documentaries.  And as Passionflower demonstrates, some very good films didn't make it into competition.

I'd note that Passionflower got audience choice in the feature category with Shouting Secrets getting second. As I write, the audience awards for documentaries aren't up yet. 

*I was told Reportero, for technical reasons, was not eligible to be in competition.  But I don't have those restrictions.  

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