2011 Golden Space Needle Awards

Each year the results of the various competition sections of the Seattle International Film Festival are announced at the Space Needle Awards brunch.  Not surprisingly, held atop the Seattle landmark of the same name.  This year I attended allowing me to enjoy some free food, live tweet the awards and take more than a few pictures.  The results are sort of old news - but I re-present them below.  SIFF awards fall into two categories, audience awards decided by popular vote (aka Golden Space Needle winners) and awards presented by a variety of juries.  Some I agree with, some I don't - but honestly, I'm just going for the movies.  So if the audience wants to vote Paper Birds the best film in the festival that's entirely their business.

There's also a list of most liked films via the unofficial Fool Serious passholder organization.  They're substantially different than the "official" results.  I'll probably have those up tomorrow for folks who like to compare.

Here are some of the big SIFF 2011 winners.

• Best New Director - Grand Jury Prize - Gandu, directed by “Q” Kaushik Mukherjee (India, 2010)
• Best Documentary - Grand Jury Prize - Hot Coffee, directed by Susan Saladoff (USA, 2011)
• FIPRESCI Prize for Best New American Film - On the Ice, directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (USA, 2011)
• Best Film Golden Space Needle Award - Paper Birds, directed byEmilio Aragón (Spain, 2010)
• Best Documentary Golden Space Needle Award - To Be Heard, directed by Roland Legiardi-Laura, Amy Sultan, Deborah Shaffer, Edwin Martinez (USA, 2010)
• Best Director Golden Space Needle Award  - Larysa Kondracki, The Whistleblower (Canada/Germany, 2010)
• Best Actor Golden Space Needle Award - Bill Skarsgård, Simple Simon (Sweden, 2010)
• Best Actress Golden Space Needle Award - Natasha Petrovic, As If I Am Not There (Ireland/Macedonia/Sweden, 2010)
• Best Short Film Golden Space Needle Award - The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore, directed by William Joyce (USA, 2011)
• Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision, Presented by Women in Film/Seattle - Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, directed by Constance Marks (USA, 2011)
• Youth Jury Award for Best FutureWave Feature - Detention, directed by Joseph Kahn (USA, 2011)
• Youth Jury Award for Best Films4Families Feature - Circus Dreams, directed by Signe Taylor (USA, 2011)
• Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short - Time Freak, directed by Andrew Bowler (USA, 2010)
• Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short - Library of Dust, directed by Ondi Timoner and Robert James (USA, 2010)
• Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short - The Eagleman Stag, directed by Mikey Please (USA, 2010) 

Here's a short piece of Deborah Person and Carl Spence kicking off the awards program:



And of course here are some photos from the festivities.  You should be able to click on each for a higher resolution version.

A look at a ticket to the event.

The actual awards on display

Folks enjoying their brunch pre-award ceremony

Deborah Person and Carl Spence introduce the program

Dustin Kaspar introduces youth juries

Film4Families Youth Jury

Youth jury awarding Detention it's prize

Presentation of the FIPRESCI prize

Presentation of the Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision

Beth Barrett and Carl Spence

Clinton McClung gets into the action

The directors, producers, and one of the non-directing stars of To Be Heard receive their awards