Telluride Film Festival (TFF), presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is pleased to announce the presentation of the inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar award. The award was established by TFF before its 46^th edition to honor the legacy of Facets Multimedia co-founder and former TFF Board President, Milos Stehlik, who passed away in July 2019. Milos’ longtime commitment to film exhibition and education, as well as to the Telluride Film Festival, made him a lifelong friend to students, cinephiles and filmmakers as a champion of cinema. Each year, one student who embodies Milos’ passion and humanist heart will be chosen from the incoming Student Symposium class to receive the award. This student will receive travel, lodging, a stipend and a student film pass. The Student Symposium, now in its 32nd year, is open to 50 currently enrolled college and university students from around the globe, no matter their major. The primary requirement is a love of film.

This year’s recipient, Damani Brissett, is a student from State University of New York at Purchase. He will receive an internship with the Telluride Film Festival Education Programs in 2020, along with the experience of attending the 47th Festival.

Damani, born and raised in Brooklyn, was selected by faculty from the Student Symposium Class of 2019. He says, “As a child, I was taught many integrities of living, some of them being: understand self-respect, respect for community, empathy, and aim to empower those around you to do good, not only for themselves, but for others. These seeds of holistic approach to humanity were sown within me and my sister at an early age, quietly, in a little corner of Flatbush Brooklyn.”

He was raised by a single mother with a devotion to her family and community, stemming from her proud Jamaican lineage. Damani continues, “Currently, as we face global dissensions on politics, ethics & consciousness altogether, I tend to revisit my origins to ascertain bearing on how to move forward. How can I, one studying filmmaker at SUNY Purchase college, work in the service of the people, with the people, in hopes to redefine systemic confines? I say, where there’s a will there’s a way, for that ‘I’ once took the form of Dr. King’s ‘Dream’, and that ‘I’ is sometimes all there needs to be, simply... a start somewhere.”

The Telluride Film Festival is honored that Damani will return next year to work with the TFF Education Programs and is proud to honor Milos’ legacy annually through the Milos Stehlik Scholar award. Milos co-founded Facets Multimedia in 1975. It is a hub for cinephiles to access hard-to-find independent and international films from around the globe. He was also a pioneer of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the oldest, biggest kid’s film festival in North America. As an educator, a journalist on WBEZ, and a vocal champion of film; Milos has helped introduce generations to the awesome power of film.