2004 AFI FEST Awards Winners
Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda (above) has won the top audience award at the 2004 edition of AFI Festival, while Temporada de patos / Duck Season, by Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke, won the Grand Jury Prize for best feature film in competition.
The Jury Prize in the International Shorts Competition went to Taika Waititi’s Two Cars, One Night from New Zealand, with a special mention to Chris Landreth’s Ryan, from Canada. Another Canadian picture, The Take, directed by Avi Lewis, won the Documentary Prize. Robin Scovill’s American-made The Other Side of AIDS received a special mention.
Other audience award winners (audiences voted on all films shown at the ten-day festival) were Neele Leana Vollmar’s Meine Eltern / My Parents, picked as best short film, and Wash Westmoreland’s Gay Republicans, the best documentary.
Held in the heart of Hollywood, at the ArcLight theater complex at Sunset and Vine, the 2004 AFI FEST (sponsored by Audi) showcased more than 136 films from 42 countries. Compared to last year, festival organizers have estimated a 20% increase in box-office receipts while the number of attending filmmakers has doubled.
At a packed screening of his Les Choristes / The Chorus, Academy Award-winning producer Arthur Cohn told the audience that the American Film Institute should be renamed the “International Film Institute.” He wasn’t kidding. In fact, at least when it comes to the AFI FEST, the title “International” would be more than appropriate as most of the festival’s highlights were non-U.S. fare such as the British-South African-Italian Hotel Rwanda, the Chinese House of Flying Daggers, the Franco-Swiss Les Choristes, the Spanish-French-Italian Mar adentro / The Sea Inside, the Spanish La Mala educación / Bad Education (director Pedro Almodóvar was honored with a special tribute), the Chilean Machuca, the Franco-American Un long dimanche de fiançailles / A Very Long Engagement, the South African Yesterday, and the German Gegen die Wand / Head-On.
Among the film celebrities from around the world who took part in this year’s festival were Shohreh Aghdashloo, Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro Amenábar, Kevin Bacon, Javier Bardem, Gael García Bernal, Orlando Bloom, Don Cheadle, Kevin Costner, Penélope Cruz, Joseph Fiennes, Jodie Foster, Terry George, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, David Lynch, Olivier Martinez, Audrey Tautou, Lesley Ann Warren, and Ziyi Zhang.
AFI FEST Awards: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2009
Film Awards: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Subscribe / Syndicate
Leave a Comment
Tags: AFI FEST, Don Cheadle, Duck Season, Fernando Eimbcke, Film Awards, Film Festivals, Gay Republicans, Hotel Rwanda, House of Flying Daggers, Wash Westmoreland
Comments
Leave a Reply
NOTE:
All comments are moderated and may take some time before they are posted. Different views and opinions are welcome, but courtesy is imperative. Rude/crass/bigoted comments and name-calling of any sort will be immediately deleted.
Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has no contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog and no information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
