A majority of the feature prizes at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival Awards went to women-directed projects.
Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik took home the best-documentary trophy for her new film Stray Dog. Her subject, Ron “Stray Dog” Hall, is a Vietnam vet who spends his time honoring his fallen brothers and helping out his Southern Missouri community. (Read Women and Hollywood’s LAFF interview with Granik.)
Eliza Kubarska received a honorable mention for her documentary Walking Under Water, a fiction-nonfiction hybrid that captures 10-year-old Sari of the Badjao tribe (in Southeast Asia) as he negotiates his path between tradition and modernity.
A team of nonprofessional actors, directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, won the Best Performance award for Recommended by Enrique. The formally experimental film is a mix of real-life events, allusions to classic noir films, and elements of Mexican-American mysticism. (Read Women and Hollywood’s LAFF interview with Attieh.)
Here are the winning projects directed by female feature filmmakers at LAFF:
Documentary award (for best documentary feature)
Stray Dog, directed by Debra Granik
Honorable mention (for best documentary feature)
Walking Under Water, directed by Eliza Kubarska
Best performance in the narrative competition
The ensemble cast of Recommended by Enrique, directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel García
Audience award for best documentary feature
Meet the Patels, directed by Geeta V. Patel and Ravi V. Patel
Audience award for best international feature
Someone You Love, directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen