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2021 BIFFy Award Winners!
Sponsored by:
And thank you to…
2021 BIFFy Award Winners!
Sponsored by:
And thank you to…
Our BIFF 2021 Honorary Chair
Snappy!
Snappy, beloved mascot of the Beloit Snappers for decades, will begin his “Farewell Tour” in February as Honorary Chair of BIFF2021. He will join a long and distinguished list of filmmakers and promoters in that hallowed post.
“We are honored to have Snappy recognized by BIFF,” says manager Riley Gostisha of Gateway Professional Baseball. “We want everyone to know that Snappy is not leaving us. He will pass the torch to a new character, but he will remain in service to the organization. He is vitally important to the history of area minor league baseball.”
The BIFF 2021
Power of Film Award
After that first BIFF event in 2006 we realized that we had unleashed something truly significant. As you well know, film can be a potent force. It can make people laugh, it can make people cry. It can touch them deep inside and make them look at the world in a whole new light.
As its name suggests, this award was created to spotlight that awesome power. It is given to a film that shares with the world a powerful, life-changing message. The winner this year absolutely fits this description.
Behind The Glass
Directed by Mehdi Irvani
Appreciation From BIFF
Films foreign to a culture may sometimes be hard to follow given the difference of context and language, but still compels you with a different perspective.
This film is not that, because it is wholeheartedly universal in its cinegraphic language. Through only a few minutes, it takes but a simple concept and creates an overwhelming sense of joy and wonder out of a dark place.
This film IS joy incarnate, a personification of an emotion without the need of dialogue that anyone can watch and enjoy.
Best Narrative Feature
Materna
Directed by David Gutnik
Finalists:
Appreciation From BIFF
Some events bind people together, regardless of their personal differences.
Forever after, you are The People Who Were There. Materna is a film about such an event, which deftly avoids focusing on the event itself. Instead, director David Gutnik pulls the viewer into the inner life of the four women affected and digs deeply into the aftermath.
The seamlessly woven narrative skillfully trusts the viewer to see the film through the lens of their own experience. Written and directed with striking realism and compassion, the portrayal of the main characters is complex and nuanced. The film offers a rewarding viewing experience for anyone who is seeking a rich depiction of womanhood that goes far beyond the standard representation of female characters in film.
Best Documentary Feature
Stromboli
Directed by Hanspeter Aliesch
Appreciation From BIFF
From the moment Stromboli begins, to the final credits, it pulls you in to its story, wrapping you in layers of history, local legend, and stunning cinematography.
Shot over six years by director Hanspeter Aliesch, Stromboli is a profoundly personal look into the lives of Maria and others who reside in the shadow of the eponymous volcano.
Narrated by Maria and set against the backdrop of the glorious Italian countryside, Stromboli offers a breathtakingly beautiful look at the duplicity of the nature of the volcano.
It is both the bringer and the destroyer of life. It fascinates with its beauty, even as it terrifies. Aliesch interweaves intimate stories and dramatically beautiful scenery with the deft touch of a master of his craft.
Best Narrative Short
The Saverini Widow
Directed by Loïc Gaillard
Finalists:
Appreciation From BIFF
Film is at its core a visual medium, telling stories through what we see on the screen; this film not only proves this point, but down right perfects it.
The set is grounded but eye-catching, the cinematography tells you what you need to know when you need to know it, the music tempers the pace, and the actors (or actress) deliver a compelling and downright chilling performance.
It tells a tale of loss and revenge, all without any need of dialogue and relying on it’s simple to follow film language.
Best Documentary Short
The Khe Sanh Peace Garden
Directed by Tinh Mahoney
Finalists:
Appreciation From BIFF
People say that truth is stranger than fiction, which is what can make Documentaries so compelling; this film’s story proves that concept wholeheartedly.
What this film may lack in pacing or compelling cinematography, its story more than makes up for it for showing how something so beautiful can rise from the ashes of such horrible events.
People’s Choice Award
Take Out Girl
Directed by Hisonni Mustafa
Best Screenplay
Touch
Directed by Aleksandra Szczepanowska
Appreciation From BIFF
This taut dramatic thriller takes us to a unique Chinese setting and an even more unique story of love, honor, trust, infidelity, lust and
cultural traditions.
The film describes the experience of an assimilated caucasian wife and mother who, due to a variety of influences and pressures, finds herself entangled in an affair that threatens her domestic world, and possibly her life.
The writer/director, who also holds down the lead role, deftly takes us on a journey that includes a marvelous script, sensational photography and enchanting sets and costumes.
Perfectly cast, with mystery and edge-of-your-seat dynamics abounding, one can almost hear the strains of a Bernard Herrmann Hitchcockian score underpinning the drama.
Masterful and mesmerizing, the screenplay is passionately constructed and provides the filmgoer with all the components that are required of an engaging thriller.
Finalists:
Best Score / Soundtrack
Mambo Man
Directed by Mo Fini & Edesio Alejandro
Appreciation From BIFF
Based on a true story emanating from Cuba, and described by the filmmakers as a musical drama, this film follows the experiences of a
man who the director calls “a local music producer, promoter, farmer and small-time hustler who lives by his wits and imagination.”
In many ways the story is told by the music it shares with the filmgoer. Love, happiness, the positive spirit of the latin way of life, are all celebrated in songs that fill one the with joy and excitement through each passing scene.
The soundtrack features the music of Cuban legends such as Candido Fabre and Arturo Jorge, as well as members of the famed Buena Vista Social Club.
Truly a wonderful film in so many ways, but the music often steals the show, and during those moments, it becomes the star.
Best Comedy Film
(Feature or Short)
DannyBoy
Directed by Ferdia Mac Anna
Appreciation From BIFF
Anyone can make a movie, but it takes a true artist to breathe life into a story.
Director Ferdia Mac Anna brings his formidable experience in writing and film to this wonderfully light-hearted comedic film, and the result is a warm and inviting coming-of-age tale which will cause the viewer to alternately smile and cringe in recognition and sympathy.
The setting – 1981, Kildare County, Ireland – gives generous opportunity for a glorious display of historically accurate costume, hair, makeup, and music choices that plunge the viewer into the heady swirl of young romance in the club scene of the madcap early ‘80s.
Finalists:
Executive Director’s Award
Love Is Not Love
Directed by Stephen Keep Mills
Appreciation From BIFF
This ode to the human search for love takes the universal concept of mating and deconstructs it through the experiences of a long-time-married mature gentleman who is dabbling in and grappling with a late-in-life dalliance, which drives the action.
That part of the story is not new to any of us. But the way in which the writer/director tells it is completely new, refreshing and illuminating.
Presented entirely in black and white, the construction is wildly inventive, blending sturdy drama, light comedy, whimsy, and tragedy.
The script is often Shakespearean in style and could easily be mounted as a stage play, which adds a unique atmosphere to the production.
Sequences of exposition are analyzed in a variety of formats that combine laugh-out-loud comedy and poetic mystery.
The cast is compact, seasoned and absolutely brilliant. An example of true cinematic art, it has been a pleasure for us to hold this film up to the light. Bravo and Brava!
Best Music Video
You Knew It Was Me
Directed by Gavin Michael Booth
Finalists:
Appreciation From BIFF
This is the first year that BIFF has included the music video as a competitive category. There was an extremely wide array of styles, concepts and genres submitted. Some were traditional music videos, while others were better described as music films. This year’s pick for top prize is of the latter form.
A sprawling 22 minute presentation, this remarkable work uses captivating musical moods matched with an almost wordless performance that, in a most unique way, tells a story of joy, passion, heartbreak, pain, resiliency and hope, as a young dancer faces her future after a debilitating automobile accident.
The director chooses a sweetly intimate portrayal of the central character, captured deftly by the cinematographer, giving the story-telling a moving eloquence.
Built over a six-song, mostly-instrumental, music collection by the brilliant Canadian composer, SYML, the film is sonically spellbinding.
The director comments that this work was conjured from pandemic boredom. It is true that pandemics are killers. But from the midst of them, some beautiful things can be born.
Wisconsin/Illinois Showdown
Appreciation From BIFF
It’s difficult to conceive how filmmakers could inject humor into a storyline so complex — alcoholism in the Midwest and its effect on the family — but writer Jason Naczek and director Niels Mueller, along with stellar acting performances, pulled it off.
The protagonist’s problems were set up in the film’s first fifteen minutes and his desire to overcome the human condition gave him the unending redeemability so necessary with such a gut wrenching topic. A solid backstory provided a compassionate view of Wayne (David Sullivan) and a tried and true friendship between he and Chuck (Bill Heck) lent to the small midwest community vibe of Main
Street USA.
The film followed a linear path through rural Wisconsin, with a brilliant instrumental piece playing in much of the background. Onward to Milwaukee, with it’s unique architecture and Brewer’s Stadium, giving us just a glimpse of the many filmmaking opportunities available in Wisconsin. The ending was in no way tied up neatly but it did give a strong feeling of hope.
As Deidra (Tanya Fischer) pleaded, “Try, Wayne.” Small Town Wisconsin is great selection for Best Wisconsin Feature film category for all the reasons above. And as director Niels Mueller (Milwaukee native) put it, “Wisconsin people are known as aggressively friendly and we’ll definitely return when the opportunity arises.”
Appreciation From BIFF
Inspired by the stories and illustrations of a native Chicagoan who has been described as “William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks and Sun Records Rockabilly,” this film chronicles life in 1950s Chicago.
This through the memories of a poet, author and screenwriter who David Lynch turned to for the sources of iconic masterpieces like WILD AT HEART and LOST HIGHWAY.
The film’s director uses a wide, wide array of visual and sonic devices that whisk the filmgoer back to a time when Chicago, and the US in general, was transitioning through the Beat Generation era.
The film uses clever artwork, unique animations, remarkable period photography and 8mm film clips, underpinned with a cool jazz soundtrack to create a smoldering hybrid atmosphere.
With narrations by Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon and Lily Taylor as icing on the cinematic cake, this film is a treasure trove of Windy City lore. It doesn’t get any more Illinois than this.
Best Wisconsin Short
Finalists:
Appreciation From BIFF
While much of this film is remarkable, what strikes us first is the strength of the performances of Jay Winters and Valerie Lighthart, whose handling of their complex interactions were finessed and feeling.
Notably, both Winters and Lighthart balance both the fun and the fraught of soured friendships. As no other medium can do just as well as film, Director Parker Winship weaves this non-linear narrative through space and time with a deft hand and an obvious attention to detail.
The fact that the performances and direction of this film feel “lived in” as well as cinematic is accentuated by the Director of Photography Spencer Ortega’s ability to play with light and movement in a story that explores mind altering substances, and the “she said, she said” quality of a friendship gone awry.
‘A Lark and a Swallow’ is an example of pulling together a dream team of filmmakers in Wisconsin and shows off the strength points of filmmaking in our region.
Best Illinois Short
Appreciation From BIFF
Log line reads “A comedian pulls a dine and dash in hopes of luring the owner of a restaurant to his show.”
Writer Gunnar Ulrich takes off from there with a storyline that begs the question “did this really happen?” This intense ten minute drama is indeed compelling. A terrific restaurant setup accompanied by rock music in the background and smacking of Midwestern roots, begins the story.
Cinematography used by filmmaker Tom Doherty lends a murky “feeling” to the scenes and crisp visuals to others, so much time and thought given to the camera. Stellar performances by Nelson Owen Gutierrez (Simon) and Dave Juehring (Troy) bring to the forefront the emotions of anger, sadness, fear, shame, hurt — emotions that force the audience fo experience the lifetime consequences of a terribly wrong decision made in a split second of panic.
And the cliffhanger ending leaves the audience fearing yet another tragic decision with devastating consequences. It’s a lot…. The Beloit International Film Festival continues to fortify the relationship with our Stateline filmmaker neighbors.
There is a plethora of talent in the Rockford area and this film is an excellent opportunity for WI/IL to realize and appreciate our collaboration possibilities, including location, talent, resources, and most importantly, provide us with a group of great filmmaker peers.
BIFFY Awards Night
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