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Wednesday, October 15-----Canadian debut filmmaker Cameron Labine has been awarded the inaugural International Film Guide Inspiration Award at this past weekend’s Awards Gala at the Vancouver International Film Festival (www.viff.org). Labine won for his feature debut, the comedy Control Alt Delete (www.controlaltdeletemovie.com), which screened in the Canadian Images section of the Festival. The film was chosen from among nearly 100 Canadian films by the Programming Committee of the Canadian Images section of the Festival for its “unique visual style, daring content and expansive execution”. In this amusing tale set in 1999 on the eve of the millenium, a loveable computer geek is dumped by his longtime girlfriend and becomes obsessed with internet porn. But the young man discovers that after a while the website images no longer turn him on... and thus begins his strangely satisfying sexual relationship with the machine itself. His desire for newer, sexier models grows until he finds himself copulating with co-workers' CPUs, while his boss vows to identify the "computer rapist." In the end, he must between his freaky fetish and the complicated challenge of carbon-based love.  

The International Film Guide Inspiration Award is presented by Wallflower Press (www.wallflowerpress.co.uk), the largest independent film book publisher in the UK, and the Criterion Collection (www.criterion.com), the leading distributor of classic world cinema. The Award, with a cash value of $2500, consists of both the 2008 and 2009 editions of the International Film Guide, a collection of film books and director monographs from various Wallflower Press series and a library of 10 classic DVDs drawn from the Criterion Collection including: RASHOMON (Akira Kurosawa), WILD STRAWBERRIES (Ingmar Bergman), NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (Federico Fellini), THE 400 BLOWS (Francois Truffaut), BAND OF OUTSIDERS (Jean Luc Godard), THE LADY VANISHES (A Alfred Hitchcock), SANS SOLEIL/LA JETEE (Chris Marker), IF (Lindsay Anderson), M (Fritz Lang) and DOWN BY LAW (Jim Jarmusch).  In addition, a profile of the winning Filmmaker and his Film will be included in the printed 2009 edition of the International Film Guide and on the sister website (www.internationalfilmguide.com), which will launch later this month.    

The International Film Guide Inspiration Award will also be presented at three additional film festivals before the end of the year, including the Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema (www.nouveaucinema.ca) to an emerging short filmmaker from the province of Quebec; the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (www.fliff.com), to an emerging American Indie feature filmmaker; and the Santa Fe Film Festival (www.santafefimfestival.com), to an emerging Documentary Filmmaker. Plans are in place to present the Award at nearly a dozen film festival events around the world in 2009.  The International Film Guide Inspiration Award is part of the renaissance of the International Film Guide, a yearbook publication that covers the world of independent and international cinema, which is celebrating its 45th year with a January 2009 publication date. The Guide, a comprehensive 450-page book, offers a world survey of over 125 countries, as well as special focuses on the worlds of film festivals, new media and other topics of interest to film professionals, academics, programmers and cinephiles.  

“We’ve wanted to work with film festivals to recognize new talents for a long time now”, Wallflower Press publisher Yoram Allon explained. “But rather than simply offering a cash prize, we felt it would ultimately be more meaningful to the filmmakers to provide them with a unique award….one that would provide inspiration, insight and helpful tools at the start of their careers. What better mentors to these new filmmakers than the classic directors of world cinema?”

Sandy Mandelberger, Awards Watch Editor