Animated Short
Winner: “Chainsaw” (director: Dennis Tupicoff)
Documentary Short
Winner: “Zietek” (director: Bartosz Blaschke)
Special Jury Award for Personal Expression and Advocacy: “Passages” (director: Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre)
Narrative Student Short
Winner: “Danzak” (writer/director: Gabriela Yepes)
Narrative Short
Winner: “Sikumi” (writer/director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean)
Special Award for Ryan Andrews’ Performance: “Frankie” (writer/director: Darren Thornton)
Special Jury Award: “Megatron” (writer/director: Marian Crisan)
Documentary Feature
Winner: Les Ninjas du Japon (director: Giommi Giovanni)
Narrative Feature
Winner: Lost & Found (writer: Maki Arai, writer/director: Nobuyuki Miyake)
Special Jury Award: Left (writer/director: Froukje Tan)
Wrap Sheet: Scenes From AFF ’08
“I write about things that interest me. It would be weird to write about things that don’t interest me,” Synecdoche, New York writer/director Charlie Kaufman said to a packed house at the Paramount Theatre on Tuesday night.
In his film Phantom Punch, and during the Q&A after the screening, director Robert Townsend (l) tried to penetrate some of the mysteries surrounding the life and death of heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston, a project he described as star “Ving Rhames’ baby.”
Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle (r), the AFF Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking awardee, identified the differences between American and British audiences: “Britain doesn’t really take cinema seriously. France, India, and America: You guys love film. It’s in your DNA.”
Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (l) kicked off her Saturday afternoon talk about the process and the perils of adapting the hit young-adult vampire novel Twilight to the big screen by screening a long clip from the film (due in theatres Nov. 21).
This article appears in October 24 • 2008.