Editor

VISIONFEST 07: The Other Festival (VF07) wrapped its five-day run last night, at the Tribeca Grand Hotel Screening Room, with its “closing night” Official Selection, pretty in the face, directed by Nate Meyer, and its 2007 Awards Ceremony, which saw the aforementioned film walk off with three major awards: Outstanding Achievement in Acting (female lead) for Meagan Moses; directing (Nate Meyer); and the festival’s top filmmaker recognition, the Domani Vision Award for Emerging Talent, also bestowed upon the film’s director, who walked to the podium and embraced his multiple award win “As validation for making a film without really worrying about what’s going to happen at the end of it.” pretty in the face, which celebrated its New York Premiere at VF07, has been garnering rave reviews around the U.S. film festival circuit since its March 2007 World Premiere at South By Southwest, picking up several awards along the way. Visionfest co-founder, Mark Doyle stated that: “The movie had been an early favorite for the Domani Vision Award since we first screened it for our selection committee. Everyone was blown away by its raw energy.” VF07 co-director, Bruno Derlin added: “I haven’t seen anything this intense since Todd Solondz’ Happiness.” The screening of the film, which ended in a round of sustained applause, prompted several other filmmakers to state how delighted they were to have come for the entire screening and not just for the Awards Ceremony.

VF07’s Jack Nance ‘Breakthrough Performance’ Award, a special nod recognizing that one performance that can easily be defined as the driving force behind a certain film, was assigned to Heather Graham for her riveting work in Alan White’s Broken, which also took home an award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography (for Neil Shapiro). The film, which screened at VF07 as this year’s “opening night” selection, will be released theatrically in New York on October 5, 2007. The film’s producer, Jerry Wayne, thanked VF07 personnel via telephone for recognizing Broken in these two categories and for embracing the film with such enthusiasm.

Other multiple award winners included Douglas Horn’s Entry Level, which picked up honors for Overall Production and for its sharp and witty ‘writing.’ Mr. Horn accepted his writing award first, saying very few words at the acceptance podium and savoring the moment, which had genuinely taken him by surprise. A few minutes later, Mr. Horn was summoned once again to pick up the Overall Production award. And this time he seemed gleefully elated and much more vocal.

Rob Muraskin’s “epic” short subject film, Olyver Brody, was named as the year’s Best Short, with a second award going to production designer, Tiffany Moore, for the visually stunning ‘fairytale’ world she created, using some very limited resources and lots of imagination.

Other award recipients rounding out the complete list include: Adrian Belic’s Beyond the Call,
which was voted as the year’s Best Feature Documentary; Rock Kohli as Best Actor for his portrayal of an unlucky NY cabbie in the feature drama, Off Duty; and editor, William Daniels, for his work on Days of Darkness. Award Certificates were presented to the short films Jesus Cooks Me Breakfast, Deleted Scenes, Other People’s Children, and Syzygy. Feature Screenwriting Competition award recipients were announced as follows: 1st Place: Mark Winzer’s The Interview; 2nd Place: Chuck Rose’s Steps, and 3rd Place: John Daschbach’s That Day On The Road. VF07 closed with a final after-party at Walker’s, announcing its 2008 film festival dates: September 17-21