- London Film Festival Awards 2004: Nicole Kassell’s child molester drama The Woodsman was the Satyajit Ray Award winner. Other honorees include Jonathan Caouette’s documentary Tarnation, and Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern’s black comedy Aaltra.
London Film Festival Awards 2004: Nicole Kassell’s U.S.-made child molester drama The Woodsman wins Satyajit Ray Award
This year’s Los Angeles-based AFI FEST hasn’t been the only international film festival to reward work tackling difficult topics, as can be attested by several award winners at the 2004 London Film Festival, held Oct. 20–Nov. 4. (This year’s London Film Festival winners are listed further below.)
Starring Kevin Bacon as a post-prison-sentence child molester trying to rebuild his life in the Philadelphia area after spending 12 years in jail, Nicole Kassell’s U.S.-made big-screen version of Steven Fechter’s play The Woodsman was the recipient of the Satyajit Ray Award for Best First Feature that “reflects the artistry, compassion and humanity” of the Pather Panchali and Aparajito filmmaker.
Besides Kevin Bacon, The Woodsman also features Bacon’s off-screen wife Kyra Sedgwick, Benjamin Bratt, David Alan Grier, Michael Shannon, Mos Def, Carlos Leon, and Kevin Rice. Both Kassell and Fechter collaborated on the screenplay.
Tarnation, A Way of Life
Another U.S. production, Jonathan Caouette’s autobiographical documentary Tarnation, won the Sutherland Trophy, “awarded to the director of the most original and imaginative first feature.” Tarnation offers a portrait of the filmmaker’s troubled relationship with his mentally ill mother.
Writer-director Amma Asante was given the UK Film Talent Award for her debut feature A Way of Life, the story of a teenage single mother involved in an ethnic feud with a Turkish neighbor.
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Award went to actors-writers-directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern’s Aaltra, a Belgian black comedy about two (recently) handicapped mortal enemies (Delépine and de Kervern).
And finally, the TCM Classic Shorts Award went to Harry Wootliff’s British-made Nits, in which a seven-year-old boy (Jonathan Mason) suffering from a severe case of head lice infestation attempts to grasp the reason for his parents’ (Ben Crompton, Nicola Stephenson) emotional distance.
Restored risqué Barbara Stanwyck showcase Baby Face
Although not an award winner, one of the 2004 London Film Festival’s most notable presentations was a movie made … in 1933.
After a thorough restoration, the uncensored version of Warner Bros.’ Pre-Code comedy-drama Baby Face – unseen since the mid-1930s – made its world premiere at the London festival.
Directed by Alfred E. Green and written by Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola from a screen story by future 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck (as “Mark Canfield”), Baby Face stars Barbara Stanwyck as a go-getting secretary who uses everything she has – that’s everything – to reach the top of the corporate ladder.
Also in the Baby Face cast: George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker, Margaret Lindsay, Arthur Hohl, Robert Barrat, Douglass Dumbrille, and, in a small role, John Wayne as one of Stanwyck’s steps up the ladder.
This year’s London Film Festival winners are listed immediately below.
London Film Festival Awards 2004
Satyajit Ray Award: The Woodsman
The Sutherland Trophy: Tarnation
International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Award: Aaltra
The Alfred Dunhill UK Film Talent Award: A Way of Life
TCM Classic Shorts Award: Nits
“London Film Festival Awards 2004: The Woodsman” notes
London Film Festival website.
Kevin Bacon The Woodsman image: Newmarket Films.
“London Film Festival Awards 2004: The Woodsman” last modified in September 2026.