On Sunday, the awards were announced for the 17th Aspen Shortsfest.
The entire list can be seen below. Except for the audience award given to COME BACK TO SUDAN, which shared the award with ONE BRIDGE TO THE NEXT, nothing was too surprising. I really liked the message of COME BACK TO SUDAN, but felt the filmmaking – especially from a story standpoint, lacked focus. More understandable, was the award to ONE BRIDGE TO THE NEXT. It’s presents us with Dr. Jim Withers, a street doctor who attended the festival, and who shall be sainted in the next century. He is that good and the film tells his story well. It wasn’t my favorite film of the fest, but I could definitely see why it shared the audience award.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY AWARDS

ANIMATED EYE AWARD
$2,500
LAVATORY LOVESTORY (Konstantin Bronzit, Russia)

BEST COMEDY
$2,500
SPIDER (Nash Edgerton, Australia)

BEST DRAMA
$2,500
WAVES (Adrian Sitaru, Romania)

BEST DOCUMENTARY
$2,500 (shared)
ELEGY FOR THE ELSWICK ENVOY (Nancy Willis, UK)
PETER AND BEN (Pinny Grylls, UK)

BEST SHORT SHORT
$1,000
JOHN AND KAREN (Matthew Walker, UK)

BEST STUDENT
$2,000
ON THE LINE (Reto Caffi, Germany/Switzerland)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
$2,500 film stock sponsored by Kodak
WAVES (Adrian Sitaru, Romania)

HARD C HIGH-FIVE TO LO-FI
sponsored by Hard C, Aspen Shortsfest alumni
Jason Reitman and Daniel Dubiecki’s comedy production company
SPIDER (Nash Edgerton, Australia)

SPECIAL JURY RECOGNITION
$500 each
BRACKISH WATER (David Reiss-Andersen, Norway)
IT’S MY TURN (Ismet Ergün, Turkey/Germany)
RATTLESNAKES (Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson, Iceland)
SALVADOR (Abdelatif Hwidar, Spain)

OTHER JURY AWARDS

THE ELLEN
$2,500
LIFE’S HARD (Gabriel Sirbu, Romania)

THE ELLEN JURY SPECIAL RECOGNITION
$1,000
THE WEDNESDAYS (Conor Ferguson, Ireland)

BAFTA/LOS ANGELES AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE
SIKUMI (ON THE ICE) (Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, USA)

BAFTA/LOS ANGELES HONORABLE MENTIONS
AQUARIUM (Rob Meyer, USA)
WAVES (Adrian Sitaru, Romania)

YOUTH JURY PRIZE
$500
CHERRIES (Tom Harper, UK)

AUDIENCE FAVORITE AWARD
$1,000 (shared)
COME BACK TO SUDAN (Daniel Junge, Patti Bonnet, USA)
ONE BRIDGE TO THE NEXT (Kim A. Snyder, USA)

Harrold Warren has his blog on fest21.com