Attendance at the four-day 2004 Phoenix Film Festival topped ten thousand, smashing previous records. Winners in the various competition categories were presented at the Festival’s Copper Wing Awards closing ceremonies Sunday Night, April 4, at which actor/director Peter Fonda received a special tribute.

Black Cloud, written and directed by former child star and Phoenix-area resident Rick Schroder won three awards; Best Picture Audience Award, Best Acting Ensemble and a Special Jury Prize for Achievement in Cinematography to Steve Gainer. Best Feature Film was won by Break a Leg, directed by Monika Mitchell. Philip Angolotti won both Best Director and Best Screenplay, along with co-writer Steven Langa, for You Got Nothing’.

Festival award-winners were selected by members of the Phoenix Film Critics Society, various independent film professionals and former Arizona Filmmaker Award winners.

Attendees packed the 600-seat Cine Capri auditorium at the Harkins Scottsdale-101 theatre complex in Phoenix to overflowing.

Festival Executive Director and co-founder Chris LaMont said, “We are overwhelmed this year by the record-breaking numbers of people coming out to support independent film, film in Arizona and the Phoenix Film Festival.”

The Festival presented more than 50 films, including 12 selected feature Competition Films (budgets under $1-million) and a dozen major independent Showcase Films, and attracted such Hollywood notables as Fonda (Easy Rider, Ulee’s Gold), novelist/screenwriter/director Michael Tolkin (The Player, The Rapture), director/producer John Landis (Animal House, Trading Places), stage and screen actor Dylan Baker (Happiness, Road to Perdition), actor/Indian activist Russell Means (Last of the Mohicans, Natural Born Killers), and Mark Miller, VP of Production for Industrial Light and Magic & Lucasfilm Ltd.

“The attendance of such tremendous guests, along with the quality of our Competition and Showcase films allowed us to deliver a world-class event, that will only be topped by next year,” said Golan Ramras, Festival Senior Director and co-founder.

Feature Films
Best Film – Break a Leg, directed by Monika Mitchell
Best Director – Philip Angelotti, Jr., You Got Nothin’
Best Screenplay – You Got Nothin’, written by Philip Angelotti, Jr.
Best Acting Ensemble – Black Cloud, written & directed by Rick Schroder

Special Jury Prizes
Achievement in Cinematography – Steve Gainer, Black Cloud
Breakthrough Performance – Evan Peters, Clipping Adam

Short Films
Best Short Film – The Old Man and the Studio, directed by Eric Champnella
Best College Short – Spidermen, directed by directed by Harry Kellerman
Best Local Short – Reveille, directed by Adam and Donovan Montierth
Best Grade School/High School Short – New Shoes for Lawrence, directed by Brian Siegele


Foundation Award
Arizona Filmmaker – Greasewood Flat, directed by Susan Brigham


Foreign Film
Dying at Grace directed by Alan King of Canada

Showcase Films
Best Picture – A Slipping Down Life, directed by Toni Kalem
Best Director – Lindsay Crystal, My Uncle Berns