Women-directed films accounted for 46 percent of the films screening at this year’s LA Film Festival. The level playing field resulted in women directors dominating the fest’s awards ceremony. Both the top fiction award and top documentary prize went to female filmmakers, as did the Audience Awards for short film and fiction feature. Overall, nine of the 17 honors went to women or films helmed by women.
“Becks,” directed by Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell, took home the U.S. Fiction Award. The film centers on flailing singer-songwriter Becks (Lena Hall) whose career is unexpectedly revitalized after she moves back home to St. Louis. “When we wrapped ‘Becks’ I said that my life goal is just to get to do this again and again and again,” Rohrbaugh said in an interview with Women and Hollywood. “I can only hope that the work resonates with a wide audience because that will ultimately prove our worth.”
“I think [women directors] need to just keep pushing, and making stuff and moving forward,” she continued. “I’m writing another screenplay right now and will crawl through the mud to get it made.”
Amanda and Aaron Kopp’s animation-documentary hybrid “Liyana” was honored with the fest’s Documentary Award. “Liyana” follows five young orphans living in Swaziland and their collaborative creation of a new female-led African myth.
In an interview, Amanda Kopp described her film as “a celebration of the healing power of storytelling.” She added, “I was drawn to this story by the complex characters of the kids in the film and by the visual possibilities of their lives and their imaginations.”
Savannah Bloch received the LA Muse Fiction Award for “And Then There Was Eve,” a story about a woman grieving her husband and trying to move on from his death. Karen Moncrieff’s supernatural drama “The Keeping Hours” and Mari Walker’s trans coming-of-age story “Swim” won the Audience Awards for Fiction Feature Film and Short Film, respectively.
Special Jury awards went to actresses Kate Nhung (“The Housemaid”) and Auden Thornton (“Beauty Mark”).
All of the female fest winners are below. List adapted from Film Independent.
U.S. Fiction Award
Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell, Becks
Documentary Award
Amanda Kopp and Aaron Kopp, Liyana
LA Muse Fiction Award
Savannah Bloch, And Then There Was Eve
Nightfall Award
Amanda Evans, Serpent
Best Short
A Funeral for Lightning, directed by Emily Kai Bock
Audience Award for Fiction Feature Film
The Keeping Hours, directed by Karen Moncrieff
Audience Award for Short Film
Swim, directed by Mari Walker
Special Jury prizes
Actress Kate Nhung (The Housemaid)
Actress Auden Thornton (Beauty Mark)
