Slamdane announce awards

The 13th edition of the Slamdance Film Festival has announced 16 film and screenplay prize winners in three categories who will share more than $125,000 in cash and prizes. The just-concluded 2007 Festival in Park City, Utah, shattered all previous submission and attendance records, having received over 3,600 submissions from 20 countries for less than 100 slots, a milestone that catapults the movie showcase into one of the largest film festivals in the world, and attracted approximately 20,000 attendees.

There are three competitive divisions at Slamdance – Grand Jury, Audience and Writer Awards, in addition to a Special Award given by Kodak. Select winning films will be shown in Salt Lake City tomorrow, Saturday, January 27th, at the Trolley Square Cinemas. Audience Award winners will be screened beginning at 12:30 p.m., followed by Documentary Jury Award winners at 2:45 p.m. and Narrative Jury Award Winners at 5:00 p.m. Trolley Square Cinemas is located at 602 E. 500 South.

A further highlight of Slamdance this year has been the sale thus far of two films: “The King of Kong” to New Line Cinema and “Over the GW” to Seventh Art Releasing. It is expected several more acquisition deals will be announced shortly.

All 2007 Festival tickets and passes that were purchased online (http://slamdance.com/2007/festival/tickets.asp) helped support people in need, close to home. A percentage of proceeds from each Slamdance ticket purchase was donated to the Utah Food Bank, serving the community that has supported the Slamdance Film Festival for the last 13 years.

“With this year’s extraordinary success on all levels, I am proud and honored to say that Slamdance has justly become one of the pre-eminent film festivals in the world ,” said Peter Baxter, the President and Co-Founder of Slamdance, whose sole mission is to nurture, support and showcase truly independent works. “We had an astonishing array of narrative films, documentaries and shorts, and audiences happily found them. Nearly all of our screenings were sold out. Our stated goal of premiering new films by first-time writers and directors working within the creative confines of limited budgets has grown dramatically, and we could not be more thrilled.”

The winners of the Grand Jury Awards are as follows:

Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature
Prize: $15,000 credit at Filmworks/FX

“Tijuana Makes Me Happy”
Written/Directed by Dylan Verrechia

Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature
Prize: Sony HDV Camera and tape courtesy of Media Distributors

“Unsettled”
Written/Directed by Adam Hootnick

Grand Jury Award for Best Animated Short
Prize: $2,500 credit at Filmworks/FX

“The Ballad of Mary Slade”
Directed by Robin Fuller

Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short
Prize: $2,500 credit at Filmworks/FX

“A Map with Gaps”
Directed by Alice Nelson

Grand Jury Award for Best Experimental Short
Prize: $2,500 credit at Filmworks/FX

“Avant Petalos Grillados”
Directed by Cesar Velasco Broca


Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Short
Prize: $2,500 credit at Filmworks/FX

“The Cow Thief”
Directed by Charles Williams


The winners of the Audience Awards are as follows:


Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature
Prize: $2,000 credit from Alpha Cine; 1,000 retail ready DVDs from Seraphic Studio; and legal services at Funkhouser, Vegosen Liebman and Dunn Ltd.

“Murder Party”
Written/ Directed by Jeremy Saulnier*

*Saulnier previously won the Slamdance 2004 Grand Jury Sparky Award for Best Narrative Short, “Crabwalk”

Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature
Prize: $2,000 credit from Alpha Cine; 1,000 retail ready DVDs from Seraphic Studio and legal services at Funkhouser, Vegosen Liebman and Dunn Ltd.

“Red Without Blue”
Written/Directed by Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills & Todd Sills

Global Audience Award for Best Anarchy Film
Prize: RESIN Software, from Caucho Technology, Inc. ($5000 value)

“Commode Creations: The Artwork of Barney Smith”
Directed by Danny Bourque


Spirit of Slamdance Award
Prize: Michael Collins Irish Whiskey gift bag

“The Mallorys Go Black Market”
Directed by JoEllen Martinson and William Scott Rees

The winners of the Writer Awards are as follows:


Award for Best Feature Length Screenplay
Prize: $7,000 cash

“Drool”
By Nancy Kissam



Award for Best Short Screenplay
Prize: $500.00 cash

“4 Corners”
By Ken Pisani


Award for Best Teleplay
Prize: Blind Script Deal to develop an original pilot with fox21 ($45,000 value)

“Ghost Towns”
By Marcus Clay Carmouche & Seamus Kevin Fahey



Award for Best Horror Competition Screenplay
Prize: $10,000 cash prize and a production deal with Angel Baby Entertainment & Maverick Red

“Slaughter”
By Bobby Darby & Nathan Brookes



Creative Excellence Award for the Horror Screenplay Competition
Prize: $1,000 cash

“Blood-Sucking Leeches and Flesh-Eating Maggots”
By Adam Balsam



Special Award:



Kodak Vision Award for Best Cinematography
Prize: $10,000 worth of Kodak film (16mm or 35mm)

This is the 10th year Kodak is sponsoring the Kodak Vision Award at Slamdance

“Under the Sun”
Director of Photography: Nikolaus Summerer

In a spirit of solidarity, and in recognition of the reduced list of finalists, the participants in the 2007 Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition choose to not compete with one another for awards, but rather wished to acknowledge the efforts and achievements of everyone who screened at the Festival.

Maverick Red, the newly formed horror division of Maverick Films, has signed on to co-produce with Angel Baby Entertainment and Slamdance a feature film based on the annual prize-winning entry of the newly-created Slamdance Horror Screenplay Competition. In addition to having their screenplay guaranteed to be made into a feature motion picture, the winning writer will receive an upfront payment of $10,000 against 5% of the film’s budget, plus net profits participation on the movie and payments for any sequels made of the motion picture. Production of the completed script will occur during the ensuing months, with the intent of having the film’s World Premiere during the follow year’s Slamdance Film Festival. A landmark precedent, no other film festival produces feature films that originated whose genesis began at that festival.