AwardsWatch

Friday, March 30------Celebrated Dutch documentary filmmaker Heddy Honigmann is being honored by two back-to-back film festivals next month. The prolific director will be honored at both the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, where she will be presented with the prestigious Hot Docs Outstanding Achievement Award, and the San Francisco Film Festival will similarly honor her with its Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, honoring the lifetime achievement of a singular artist working in the documentary world.

In addition, Honigmann's latest film FOREVER, a poetic essay filmed in the historic Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris (where such notables as Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust and even rocker Jim Morrison are buried) will have its Canadian and US premieres at the respective festivals next month. The Hot Docs Festival, which has emerged as a major showcase for documentary films, will also host a retrospective of Honigmann's career.

FOREVER has been screened extensively on the international film circuit, winning the Ecumenical Jury Award at the 2006 Leipzig Film Festival and the Crystal Film Award at the 2006 International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. The film will be released throughout North America by First Run/Icarus Films, and is set for a September theatrical opening at Film Forum in New York .

Sandy Mandelberger, Awards Watch Editor