Editor

Filmmakers from Iran, South Korea, Germany and Poland take home top prizes at the second edition of the Viewster Online Film Festival
 
Viewster (http://www.viewster.com/), the only online video service with its own film festival, today announced the winners of the second edition of the Viewster Online Film Festival (#VOFF), a cutting-edge worldwide event where television and filmlovers as well as producers gather online to discover and share creative short films, features, web series and documentaries. Participants submitted films centering on the theme: “Relationship Status: It’s Complicated” for a chance to win a share of $100,000 USD in prizes as well as feedback from an expert panel of judges including famed independent film producer Ted Hope, actress Nora Tschirner and Timo Vuorensola, director of award-winning international film, Iron Sky.
 
The second #VOFF edition received nearly 1,000 submissions from filmmakers representing 70 countries, with 500 films ultimately accepted to compete for awards. The top prize of US$70,000 was awarded to Ali Zare Ghanatnowi of Iran, for his animated short film, Dad’s Fragile Doll. A second place prize of US$20,000 was awarded to Taegue Lim of South Korea for his film Wrong, and Sylvia Borges of Germany took home third place and US$7,500 for her comedy Your Place. Adam Janisch of Poland received a fourth place prize of US$2,500 for his touching original film, Next.
 
“When we started this festival competition, we just wanted to create a place for filmmakers to showcase their work and for film fans to discover creative international content,” said Kai Henniges CEO of Viewster. “The second festival edition surpassed our expectations and we consider it a great reward that that the winners represent such different global and cultural perspectives.”
 
#VOFF is the ideal platform for film producers, independent or not, to showcase their work. Attracting roughly 500,000 online visitors. The second edition of VOFF was also the most social festival to date with tens of millions of interactions on festival content across social media.
 
“We’ve seen engagement like never before this year,” said Henniges. “Viewers’ response has been overwhelming and we view the success of this festival as a sign of much greater things to come.”
 
Further resources:
A full list of winners and finalists is available at http://festival.viewster.com with a video recap of the festival and the jury deliberation session

The interview with the winners can be found here: http://blog.viewster.com/an-iranian-animated-short-film-just-won-voff-and-70000