0
CART
$0.00

SLIFF AWARDS

CINEMA ST. LOUIS AWARDS – 

Contemporary Cinema Award: Contessa Gayles

Previous winners of the Contemporary Cinema Award—which honors mid-career filmmakers doing challenging, innovative work—include Jay and Mark Duplass, Alex Gibney, Trent Harris, Stanley Nelson, Arsen Anton Ostojic, Doug Pray, Jason Reitman, Marco Williams, and Terry Zwigoff.

Contessa is a documentary filmmaker, Emmy-nominated producer, and storyteller focused on identity, sociopolitical movements, healing, and liberation, with an emphasis on race and gender. At this year’s festival, she screened The Debutantes and Songs From The Hole. Her work has been supported by prominent organizations like Impact Partners, Field of Vision, and the Queen Collective, with fellowships from SFFILM, Netflix Amplifier, Firelight Media, and more. Her short film Founder Girls (Exec. Producer Queen Latifah) premiered at Tribeca 2023 and aired on BET. A former CNN producer (2014–2018), Contessa created award-winning series and documentaries, including The Feminist on Cellblock Y. She has also contributed to VICE, PBS, Al Jazeera, and acclaimed documentaries like Netflix’s Convergence: Courage in a Crisis. Contessa holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an M.A. from NYU.

Women in Film Award: Ilana Trachtman 

Previous winners of the Women in Film Award — which honors women who have made a significant contribution to the film industry — include Karen Allen, Nina Davenport, Pam Grier, Barbara Hammer, Marsha Hunt, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Melanie Mayron, Katie Mustard, Rosemary Rodriguez, Ry Russo-Young, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, Kimberly Steward, Yvonne Welbon, Pamela Yates, Lisa Cortés, and Signe Baumane.

Ilana Trachtman is an Emmy-winning producer and director with over 25 years of experience creating nonfiction programs for PBS, HBO Family, ABC, Showtime, Discovery, and the Sundance Channel. Her work has explored diverse topics, including the legacy of slavery in Latin America, Gulf Coast social activism, and transgender parenting. Ilana’s PBS credits include directing Mariachi High and Black in Latin America with Henry Louis Gates, producing for History Detectives and Reading Rainbow, and helming the feature Praying with Lior, which screened in over 60 cities worldwide, winning six Audience Awards and critical acclaim from The New York Times and The Washington Post. Most recently, she directed The Pursuit: 50 Years in the Fight for LGBT Rights for WHYY, earning a Mid-Atlantic Emmy for Best Documentary.

 

JURIED AWARDS – 

Spotlight on Inspiration: “Searching for Amani” directed by Debra Aroko & Nicole Gormley

This juried competition awards a $5,000 prize to a feature documentary that focuses on people working to make the world a better place and that inspires audience members and leaves them with a sense of hope for the future.

The films considered for this award were: “Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round,” “The Calling,” “The People’s Way,” “Porcelain War,” “Rising Hope,” “Searching for Amani,” “Shari & Lamb Chop,” “Songs from the Hole,” “Unearth,” and “Without Arrows.”

The Jury was Barry Albrecht (chair), partner with the Bodley Group and director of the Albrecht Family Foundation; Joshua Johnson, a VFX supervisor, director, and writer with over 16 years of experience in the film industry. In 2023, he was voted into the Visual Effects Society (VES), a global honors society for professionals in the film industry. He has worked on 27 feature films thus far;  Andrew Millians, Head of Media, Communications, and Cinema at Lindenwood University; Mireia Vilanova, an animation and live action producer and executive from Barcelona based in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in festivals all over the world, including Tribeca, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Outfest, and has been supported by Sundance, Film Independent, NALIP, Women in Film, among others; and Fu Yang, originally from Taiwan and came to San Francisco to study traditional animation in 2016. Stop-motion is her forte. In 2022, she reestablished an animation studio with her husband in St. Louis, MO, and works from filmmaking to teaching.

 

New Filmmakers Forum (NFF) Emerging Director Award: Jeff Mann, “Paper Marriage”

The New Filmmakers Forum Emerging Directors competition is SLIFF’s longest-running juried award. It’s a celebration of fresh voices in global indie cinema and showcases debut works from talented first-time independent filmmakers. These films represent the future of independent filmmaking, offering new perspectives on timeless themes like relationships, identity, and personal growth.

Since its inception, NFF was co-curated by Bobbie Lautenschlager. Bobbie passed away in the summer of 2012, and SLIFF honors her memory by nicknaming the NFF Emerging Director Award as The Bobbie.

The films included in the 2024 NFF were: “Paper Marriage,” “Run,” “The Stranger’s Case,” “The Umesh Chronicles,” and “Where in the Hell.”

The NFF Jury was: Marc Marriott, an award-winning producer/director of television and film based in Los Angeles. His debut feature, Tokyo Cowboy, won the “Best Narrative Feature” award at multiple film festivals, and he was the recipient of the 2023 New Filmmakers Forum “Bobbie” Award; Tim Maupin, Tim is a New York City-based director, motion designer, and Emmy award-winning cinematographer. He has also worked as an editor, camera operator, and stereographer. He has a variety of professional experience behind him, including working with clients such as Lexus, Motorola, CAT Footwear, Sotheby’s, Sebago, Spotify, Discovery, TLC, 3NET, and Nickelodeon; and Isabel Bishop, who has worked at several film festivals around the country, including SXSW, TIFF, and SLIFF. She also writes freelance film criticism. Her work is on Think Christian, The Take, or her personal Substack.

 

St. Louis Film Critics’ Joe Pollack and Joe Williams Awards

In conjunction with the St. Louis Film Critics Organization, SLIFF holds juried competitions for documentary and narrative features. The awards honor the late St. Louis Post-Dispatch critics Joe Pollack (narrative) and Joe Williams (documentary). The winners are picked by two juries of St. Louis film critics. SLIFF chose eight films to compete in each category:

Documentaries: “23 Mile,” “Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round,” “Emergent City,” “Porcelain War,” “Searching For Amani,” “The Strike,” “Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea,” and “White With Fear.”

Narratives: “Dead Man’s Switch,” “Poyyamozhi,” “Run,” “Stampila,” “The Stranger’s Case,” “Those Were the Good Days,” “The Umesh Chronicles,” and “Wingwalker.”

The documentary jury was Lynn Venhaus – Chair, Rotten Tomatoes-certified film critic who reviews for the Webster-Kirkwood Times, KTRS Radio, and PopLifeSTL.com website. She is an approved member of Critics Choice Association, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and St. Louis Film Critics Association; Cate Marquis, film critic and historian, co-founder, past president, and current member of St. Louis Film Critics Association, member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Rotten Tomatoes’ TomatoMeter-Approved Critic, reviewer for We Are Movie Geeks; and Joshua Ray, Film Critic for KMOV CBS-4, KDHX 88.1; Co-Owner and Contributing Editor of The Take-Up. 

The narrative jury was Jim Tudor, chair, Zeke.film, President of the St. Louis Film Critics Association, and adjunct instructor of film studies at Webster University; Max Foizey, a member of the Critics Choice Association and the St. Louis Film Critics Association, Maxamillion Foizey is a contributing writer for ZekeFilm.org and is the host of Max on Movies on KTRS radio; Alex McPherson, unabashed pop culture nerd, member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association, and reviewer for Pop Life STL; and George Napper,  film critic for TheArtsSTL and a member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association, George’s reviews can be found at theartsstl.com

The award-winning films were “Porcelain War” (documentary), directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, and “The Stranger’s Case” (narrative), directed by Brandt Andersen.

 

Shorts Competition:

The SLIFF Shorts Competition is officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. The winners in the Best of Fest, Best Animated, Best Live Action, and Best Documentary categories are eligible to submit for Oscar® consideration.

Two juries choose the winners of the following seven awards from among the shorts in competition:

  • Best of Fest: “The Test” directed by Claudia Myers & Laura Waters Hinson
  • Best Animated Short: “Satomi” directed by Rayner Wang
  • Best Documentary Short: “Di Sarno – The Story of Emilio’s Ballato” directed by Johannes Kroemer & Lou Carvell
    • Honorable Mention: “Instruments of a Beating Heart,” directed by Ema Ryan Yamazaki
  • Best International Short: “A Move” directed by Elahe Esmaili
  • Best Live Action Short: “The Mourning Of,” directed by Merced Elizondo
  • Best Local Short: “Us + One” directed by Andy Compton
  • Best Short Short (less than 5 minutes): “The Shortest Relationship in the World” directed by Xiaoxuan Han

 

Shorts Jury members: Emmanuel Etim, founder, and executive producer at the Ghana-based production company Refined Creative; Tim Maupin, New York City-based director, motion designer, and Emmy award-winning cinematographer; Millie Legrain, freelance writer and content creator, The Guardian; Liz Norton, Director of Holding Ground Media, documentary filmmaker and former nonprofit founder/executive director; Kat Roman, an award-winning writer, director, and producer whose work has earned recognition from top-tier festivals like NewFest, Montclair, and Jackson Wild, along with accolades from the Telly Awards and the National Board of Review; and Sean Sonnenburg, a Brooklyn-based cinematographer and co-owner of Space Crow Studios.

 

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS – 

Audience voting determines the winner of four awards from among the films in the competition: 

  • Best Film Award: “September 5,” directed by Tim Fehlbaum
  • Best Independent Film Award: “Lady Parts,” directed by Nancy Boyd
  • Leon Award for Best Documentary Award: “Songs from the Hole,” directed by Contessa Gayle
  • Best International Film Award: “Porcelain War,” directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev