The Horizon Awards were given out this Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. A press release announced Benita Ozoude and Giselle Bonilla as this year’s recipients. The pair were presented the prizes, which recognize emerging female filmmakers, by director and cinematographer Reed Morano (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and actor Garrett Hedlund (“Mudbound”).
Ozoude and Bonilla’s winning short films were selected from a record 380-plus applications. Ozoude’s project is about an East Austin restauranteur who helps feed the homeless during her spare time, and Bonilla’s short is a portrait of a woman who wishes to terminate an unplanned pregnancy.
As part of their awards Ozoude and Bonilla will receive mentorship and grants “established to support emerging female directors and address the significant disparity between the numbers of female to male directors.”
The Horizon Awards Sundance event also featured a special presentation of 2014 winner Veronica Ortiz Calderon’s “Candlelight.” The short documentary, which traces the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, was introduced by actress and filmmaker Maria Bello (“NCIS”).
“Nothing has been more rewarding for me than to help my partners identify new female directors and try to help and inspire them to pursue their dream of making movies,” Horizon Award co-founder and “Mudbound” producer Cassian Elwes remarked.
“We need to move beyond the broken record of how underrepresented women are in front of and behind the camera,” added award co-founder and “Big Eyes” producer Lynette Howell Taylor. “It is an honor to be a part of this and I am humbled and inspired by everyone who generously gives their time and money towards closing this gap.”
Bonilla and Ozoude’s bios are below, courtesy of the Horizon Awards.
Giselle Bonilla recently graduated as a Dean’s Scholar from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Television Production. Originally from Los Angeles, Bonilla grew up as a child actor until she decided to pursue her dreams of being a writer/director in the hopes of expanding opportunities for Latinos to be represented on screen.
Benita Ozoude is a recent Journalism and Radio, Television and Film graduate from the University of Texas at Austin. Ozoude is a young, curious Nigerian documentary filmmaker who wants to be a voice for those who might not be heard. Her passion is to bring awareness to issues unfamiliar to the general public. Her short film, “The Queen of Rosewood,” won Best Documentary Short at the 2016 Capital Black Film Festival in Austin. The film focuses on the large population of people who are homeless in Austin, Texas. She made another short documentary about a DACA elementary teacher who talks about the struggle immigrants face seeking citizenship in this political climate.
This past summer, Ozoude interned for two-time Oscar Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple. She has also interned for the NFL Network, PBS, NPR, and The Hollywood Reporter to name a few.
