Red Rock Film Festival presents Films from M.A.R.S. Winners Showcase in Cedar City
By Matt Marxteyn
A selection of films receiving awards from the 11th annual Red Rock Film Festival will be shown April 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Films From M.A.R.S. Winners Showcase, which will be held at the Ramada Hotel in Cedar City. The award-winning films were selected from fourteen categories: Documentary Feature; Fiction Feature; Documentary Featurette; Fiction Featurette; Animation Short; Documentary Short; Experimental Short; Fiction Short; Short-Short; Music Video; Collegiate Short, Animation; Collegiate Short, Documentary; Collegiate Short, Fiction; and Young Filmmaker Short — plus a Spirit of the Festival Award.
All films in competition were eligible for the Red Rock Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Aglet Awards, and Audience Awards as selected by festival audiences. The Red Rock Audience Awards were announced in an awards ceremony April 8 with the Grand Jury Prize and Aglet Award winners later on its website. In a strange following, later that evening after Buddy Day’s “Manson: The Voice of Madness” was announced as the audience’s choice for Documentary Feature,, Charles Manson died.
Some filmmakers won multiple awards with some return filmmakers. Directing duos Max Sachar and Natasha Adorlee Johnson won two Audience Awards for their short film “Take Your Time,” one for Music Video, and the other for Experimental Short.
Andreas Feix not only won the Audience Award for “Citipati” for Collegiate Animation Short but the Collegiate Grand Jury Prize as well plus a Grand Jury Prize for Best Animation Short. Three other filmmakers won over both the audience and grand jury: Jing Yuan (Mavis) for the animated short “Yin and Yang,” Maureen Ni Fiann and Tom Rochester for their documentary featurette “Instrument of Change: Street Piano,” and Werner Fiedler’s fiction featurette “Halim.”
Ben Proudfoot, director of 2016’s Documentary Feature Audience Winner “Rwanda & Juliet,” came back winning the Audience Award for his documentary short this year, “Kunstglaser.” Morgana McKenzie, who won the Audience Award in 2016 for Young Filmmaker Short, also made a return as an adult with as Grand Jury Prize for her music video “Atlas World.”
With a nod to dark comedy, Josef Brandl’s “Nicole’s Cage” won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Fiction Short with the micro budget Aglet Award going to Felix Karolus’s “Go Paul.” “Nicole’s Cage” also won a Special Achievement award for visual effects.
Grand jury member Stuart Robinson who gave “Nicole’s Cage” a perfect score said the film had a “quirky directorial style reminiscent of Wes Anderson.” Of “Go Paul,” he said that the films had a “fascinating story with twists, turns, and misdirections. Game theory put into film.”
Jury member Richard Beer — director of programming for the independent Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver, Washington — said of “Go Paul,” “Tightly written and directed. Amazing how much story they got into 17 minutes!”
The Spirit of the Festival Award is an award given to a filmmaker or attendee that exemplifies the festival spirit, and was given to Katharine Kingsland, director of documentary feature “In Rajasthan,” who said, “I thoroughly enjoyed it and all the films I had a chance to see.”
Other attendees also expressed their enthusiasm in the quality of films this year, stating that the documentary and fiction short films were better than what they’ve seen at other festivals in New York and Utah.
It’s the quality and diversity of the films that make for a great festival year. This year was filled with a new vibe in a freshly remodeled Ramada Hotel with new faces from new attendees and new screens.
Judges included 19 filmmakers, film historians, film festival directors, and other artists from around the world including three local professors from SUU: Ryan Paul, Richard Bugg, and Stuart Robinson. With 956 films submitted from 61 countries, the Red Rock Film Festival had plenty to choose from for a small festival in southern Utah.
The Ramada Hotel is located at 1575 W 200 N in Cedar City. Tickets are $5 for section C, $7 for section B, and $10 for section A. Tickets and details about the films can be found at goelevent.com/RRFF/e/Search or by calling (435) 705-5555.
2017 Red Rock Film Festival Audience Awards
Fiction Feature
Sanjay Patel — “Union Leader”
Documentary Feature
Buddy Day — “Manson: The Voice of Madness”
Fiction Short
Miguel Ortega — “The Ningyo”
Animation Short
Yulia Ruditskaya — “And the Moon Stands Still”
Documentary Short
Ben Proudfoot — “Kunstglaser”
Experimental Short
Max Sachar, Natasha Adorlee Johnson — “Take Your Time”
Documentary Featurette
Maureen Ni Fiann, Tom Rochester — “Instrument of Change: Street Piano”
Fiction Featurette
Werner Fiedler — “Halim”
Short-Short
Tao Hu — “Papers”
Music Video
Max Sachar, Natasha Adorlee Johnson — “Take Your Time”
Collegiate Short — Documentary
Scott E. Schimmel, Geoff Groberg — “Driven Blind”
Collegiate Short — Animation
Andreas Feix — “Citipati”
Collegiate Short — Fiction
Noëmi Natascha Schneider — “Family”
Young Filmmaker Short
Jing Yuan (Mavis) — “Yin and Yang”
Spirit of the Festival
Katherine Kingsland (director of “In Rajasthan”)
2017 Red Rock Film Festival Grand Jury Awards
Best Fiction Feature
Mascha Schilinski — “Dark Blue Girl”
Best Documentary Feature
Dominic Gill — “Coming To My Senses”
Best Fiction Short
Josef Brandl — “Nicole’s Cage”
Best Animation Short
Andreas Feix — “Citipati””
Best Documentary Short
Abraham Joffe — “Ghosts of the Arctic”
Best Experimental Short (Tie)
Steven Siegel — “35 Pieces” and
Sophie Galibert — “What the Hell!”
Best Documentary Featurette
Maureen Ni Fiann, Tom Rochester — “Instrument of Change: Street Piano”
Best Fiction Featurette
Werner Fiedler — “Halim”
Best Short-Short
Michael Marczewski — “Vicious Cycle”
Best Music Video
Morgana McKenzie — “Atlas World”
Best Collegiate Short — Documentary
Maximilian Preisig — “Mum, I Dyed my Hair”
Best Collegiate Short — Animation
Andreas Feix — “Citipati”
Best Collegiate Short — Fiction
Monica Santis — “Towards the Sun”
Best Young Filmmaker Short
Jing Yuan (Mavis) — “Yin and Yang”
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