HOLLYWOOD – The Angelus Student Film Festival, celebrating its 16th year, will present its 2011 winners and finalists with more than $50,000 in cash awards and industry prizes at its screening and awards ceremony, Saturday, October 8, at the Directors Guild of America.
The event, was emceed by Leo Quinones, popular syndicated movie talk radio personality known as “the Film Freak,” honors and showcases future filmmakers as they create works that respect the dignity of the human person. The winning films will be screened during the evening, with films receiving an honorable mention screening earlier that afternoon.
The top prize, the Patrick Peyton Excellence in Filmmaking Award, will be presented to Raju written and directed by Max Zahle of the Hamburg Media School. Raju follows the story of a German couple who adopts a young Indian boy in Kolkata when the boy suddenly disappears without a trace. The award is the most coveted among Angelus entrants and includes a cash prize of $10,000, one of the highest among student film festivals. It is sponsored by Family Theater Productions, Hollywood, which created the Angelus Student Film Festival in 1996.The award will be presented by 2011 Academy Award winner, Luke Matheny, whose film GOD OF LOVE captured the 2010 Angelus grand prize as well as the Oscar for Live Action Short.
Other awards include the $5,000 Triumph of the Spirit Award, sponsored by the Peter Glenville Foundation for the film that best reflects a redemptive theme; the $3,000 Outstanding Documentary Award, sponsored by the Priddy Brothers production and distribution company; the $2,500 Audience Impact Award, sponsored by Fuji Film; the $2,500 Production Excellence Award, sponsored by Mole-Richardson lighting company; and the $2,000 Outstanding Animation Award, and the Director’s Choice Award. Winners along with finalists also receive industry products and other prizes. (Winners and Honorable Mentions are listed at end of this press release.)
The 24 finalists, and the eight winners, were selected from 527 submissions representing 180 film schools in 30 countries including Iceland, Chile, Kuwait, Bulgaria, China, Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S.
For a complete list of the winners and honorable mentions, vist the Angelus Student Film Festival website.
Past and present festival juries comprised of industry professionals, including Academy Award-winning documentary film producer Eva Orner, screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi, 2010 Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams, Post Magazine editor and former Imagineering executive Daniel Restuccio, X-Men and Rise of the Silver Surfer producer Ralph Winter, and actor/agent Toochis Morin, convene each August to select the winners from the finalists.
Zahle joins an impressive list of Angelus winners or “alumni” including last year’s winner Luke Matheny, who also took home Oscar gold for his live action short God of Love, Gregg Helvey and his film Kavi and Reto Caffi, and his film On The Line, who went on to receive the 2010 and 2009 Academy Award nomination in the Live Action Short category, respectively; Hilla Medalia (2004 Outstanding Documentary winner), whose 2007 documentary, To Die in Jerusalem, aired on HBO, was awarded the prestigious Peabody Award and was nominated for three 2008 Emmy Awards; Christof Putzel (2002 Outstanding Documentary winner), who received two 2008 Emmy nominations for his documentaries Mogadishu Madness and From Russia with Hate; and the 2006 grand-prize winner Barbara Stepansky, whose second film, Fugue, follows her debut feature, Hurt, from High Treason Productions, starring Melora Walters and William Mapother.
This year Bestuniversties.com listed Angelus as one of the “10 Great Student Film Festivals For Fans and Filmmakers” noting how participation in the annual event serves as a calling-card for the blockbuster directors of tomorrow while MovieMaker Magazine named Angelus one of the “25 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” and included it in its “Best of” issue. The festival was highlighted for its large cash prizes, low entry fees and also its “commitment to cultural diversity.”
Angelus Student Film Festival was developed by Family Theater Productions, a Catholic media outlet and a ministry of the Unites States Province’s Holy Cross Family Ministries. Angelus Student Film Festival has produced more than 900 dramatic and documentary TV and radio programs for nearly 65 years to entertain and inspire families.
