Editor

AFI FEST 2005, Los Angeles' longest-running Festival, wrapped another successful year at ArcLight Hollywood with its Awards Presentation, sponsored by Netflix. Held on Sunday, November 13, at 5:00 p.m. in the Loft at the Rooftop Village, the event was hosted by Tom Arnold, whose THE KID AND I just saw its World Premiere at a special screening at the Festival.

The Festival Jury has awarded Norway's "Kissed by Winter" its grand jury prize in the international feature competition, while the audience award for best feature film went to both Canada's "C.R.A.Z.Y." and South Africa's "Tsotsi."
In the documentary competition, Zach Niles and Banker White won the Aquafina Pure Vision Award for their film "The Refugee All Stars."
In the shorts competition, German director Till Nowak's "Delivery" received the fest's best short film prize in both the jury and audience competitions.

AFI FEST 2005 saw a robust and diverse slate of said special screenings--including films from Roger Spottiswoode (RIPLEY UNDER GROUND), Neil Jordan (BREAKFAST ON PLUTO) and Andy Garcia, who made his feature directorial debut with THE LOST CITY. There were also a clutch of films--Stephen Frears' MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS, Laurence Dunmore's THE LIBERTINE and Michael Winterbottom's TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY--that between them racked up an astonishing 21 nominations for the 8th annual British Independent Film Awards, to be held on Wednesday, November 30, at Hammersmith Palais in London.

The Festival's overall lineup, meanwhile, also showcased 127 films from 44 different countries--including 20 World Premieres, 22 North American Premieres and 18 US Premieres--and a particularly strong non-fiction slate, which saw solid attendance throughout the week and a lot of positive buzz encircling films like Steve Anderson's FUCK, Zach Niles and Banker White's THE REFUGEE ALL STARS, Davin Anders Hutchins' THE ART OF FLIGHT, Damon Brown's BURNING MAN: BEYOND BLACK ROCK and Ari Alexander Ergis' SCREAMING MASTERPIECE. Those aforementioned five--along with seven others--make up the eligible films of the International Documentary Competition, and 12 other movies mark the International Feature Competition.

Festival jurors include filmmakers Patty Jenkins, Penelope Spheeris, Quentin Lee, Fenton Bailey and Sean Welch, actress Tamlyn Tomita, directors of photography Amy Vincent and Wally Pfister and film critic Jean Oppenheimer.