Takeshi Fukunaga’s Out of My Hand, about a Liberian man trying to forge a new life in New York City, received the U.S. Fiction Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, which announced its winners today an awards cocktail reception.
The World Fiction Award went to Beata Gardeler’s Swedish film Flocken, and the Documentary Award was presented to Mo-Young Jin’s My Love, Don’t Cross That River, about a long-time Korean couple facing their last days together. All three films had their North American premiere at the festival, which concludes Thursday with a live read of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, directed by Eli Roth.
The winner of the LA Muse Award was Can You Dig This, a documentary about urban gardening in South Central Los Angeles, directed by Delila Vallot.
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Two new prizes were handed out: The inaugural Nightfall Award, given to a film in the fest’s genre sidebar, was awarded to Viet Nguyen for Crush the Skull. And the Zeitgeist Award, given to an indie movie, went to Bradley Kaplan for Stealing Cars.
Audience Awards were voted to: Best Fiction Fiction, Pocha (Manifest Destiny), directed by Michael Dwyer and co-directed by Kaitlin McLaughlin; and Best Documentary Feature Film, a tie, between I Am Thalente, directed by Natalie Johns, and Be Here Now, directed by Lilibet Foster.
Two Alfred P. Sloan Grants were also announced during the course of the fest. The Alfred P. Sloan Fast Track Grant, including a $20,000 award, was given to writer/director Elena Greenlee and producer Marcia Nunes for their project Dark Forest. The Alfred P. Sloan Distribution Grant, which includes $50,000 to support the release of the film, was awarded to Michael Almereyda‘s Experimenter, produced by Uri Singer, Fabio Golombek, Isen Robbins and Aimee Schoof. Their film will be released by Magnolia Pictures in October.
