BY BTL STAFF
A scene from "Hard as Opal," which won the autFILM Award for Best LGBT Film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival this year.
The 54th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival has officially come to a close. Over 65 filmmakers were in attendance from eight countries. Interns flew in from Edge Hill University in the United Kingdom and attendees traveled from near and far, all to experience the world of experiential film. Virtual reality, digital animation and more filled the lobby and discussion of film, art and life radiated through the Michigan Theater for six days straight.
Jurors Garbi–e Ortega, Carl Bogner and Rebecca Baron chose award recipients, including "Hard as Opal" by Jared Buckhiester and Dani Leventhal for the autFILM Award for Best LGBT Film. In "Hard as Opal" the lines between truth and fiction, fact and fantasy, are reined in and treated not as fixed, divisive markers but as malleable threads of narrative potential. Buckhiester and Leventhal perform alongside other non-actors who are filmed in their own varying domestic and professional environments. The result is a rich accumulation of narratives held together by questions concerning the nature of objectification, loneliness and dissociative fantasy.
Other award categories included:
Ken Burns Award for Best of the Festival
"Ear, Nose, Throat" (Kevin Jerome Everson)
The Stan Brakhage Film at Wit's End Award
"The Illinois Parables" (Deborah Stratman)
Lawrence Kasdan Award for Best Narrative Film
"Edmond" (Nina Gantz)
Michael Moore Award for Best Documentary Film
"The Event" (Sergei Loznitza)
Tios Award for Best International Film
"Dead Slow Ahead" (Mauro Herce)
Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film
"(conical signal)" – arc
autFILM Award for Best LGBT Film
"Hard as Opal" (Jared Buckhiester and Dani Leventhal)
Leon Speakers Award for Best Sound Design
"Irradiant Field" (Laura Kraning)
Kodak Cinematic Vision Award
"Fish Point" (Pablo Mazzolo)
"House and Universe" (Antoinette Zwirchmayr)
The No Violence Award
"Bending to Earth" (Rosa Barba)
Best Experimental Film
"Engram of Returning" (Da•chi Sa•to)
Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film
"The Resonance (Rezonans)" (Mateusz Sadowski)
The Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for Emerging Experimental Video Artist
"Vague Images at the Beginning and End of the Day" (Carl Elsaesser)
Prix DeVarti for Funniest Film
"A Boy Needs a Friend" (Steve Reinke)
Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker
"J‡aji Approx." (Sky Hopinka)
"Australian Paper" (Minjung Kim)
George Manupelli Founder's Spirit Award
"We Chose the Milky Way" (Eva Marie R¬ødbro)
Gil Omenn Art & Science Award
"Prima Materia" (Charlotte Pryce)
The Eileen Maitland Award
"Baba Dana Talks To The Wolves" (Ralitsa Doncheva)
Overture/Wazoo Award for Best Music Video
"Beasts in the Garden" by Spires that in the Sunset Rise (Lori Felker)
PROCAM Best Regional Filmmaker Award
"?Our Last Hurrah" (Terri Sarris)
"How to Rust" (Julia Yezbick)
Jury Awards went to "Two Clothespins in an Envelope" (Susanna Wallin); "Vivir Para Vivir / Live to Live" (Laida Lertxundi); "Blue and Red" (Zhou Tao); and "Summer 1975" (Wrik Mead).
