'Only the Young' Takes Top Prize at the Silverdocs Documentary Festival

2:04 PM PDT 6/25/2012 by Gregg Kilday

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Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims' film looks at Southern California skateboarders.

Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims’ Only the Young, a documentary about Southern California teenage skateboarders, won the Sterling award for best U.S. feature at the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival, which concluded Sunday in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Ramona Diaz's 'Don't Stop Believin'' to Open Silverdocs Film Festival

The Sterling award for best world feature went to Seungiun Yi’s Planet of Snail, which focuses on deaf and blind South Korean poet Young-Chan.

Andrew Garrison’s Trash Dance, about the creation of a dance piece inspired by the work of sanitation workers, earned the festival’s audience award for best feature.

Sari Gilman’s Kings Point collected the Sterling Award for best Short film, while the audience award for best short went to Steven Bognar and Julia Reichart’s Sparkle.

The week-long festival screened 114 films, representing 44 countries, and played host to more than 1,000 filmmakers, film and television executives and media professionals involved in documentary filmmaking.

Films that were awarded special jury mentions included: Peter Nicks’ The Waiting List, special U.S. feature jury mention; Fernand Melgar’s Special Flight (Vol special), special world feature jury mention; Cynthia Wade’s Mondays at Racine, Sterling short honorable mention; and Nadav Kurtz’s Paradise, Sterling short honorable mention.

Other awards included: The WGA Documentary Screenplay Award, Ann Richards’ Texas, written by Keith Patterson; React to Film Social Issue Award, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, directed by Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke, and The House I Live In, directed by Eugene Jarecki; the Cinematic Vision Award, ¡Vivan Las Antipodas!, directed by Victor Kossakovsky; the Whole Foods/Silverdocs Green Grant for a project in development, Seed, directed by Taggart Siegel; and the Whole Foods/Silverdocs Green Grant for completion of a project, Can’t Stop the Water, directed by Rebecca and Jason Ferris.