Meet the 2020 top winners

Productions from Qatar, Austria, Japan and China have taken top honors in the 2020 US International Film & Video Festival.  

Best of Festival (Grand Prix) awards went to the following:   

"The Landing," from The Film House, Doha, Qatar, won in Corporate. The production uses a fictitious Viking arrival on the shores of Qatar and dialogue to tell the story of a long bond between Qatar and Norway. It was done for QAFCO (Qatar Fertilizer Company).

Winning in Documentary is "Okavango - River of Dreams - Episode 1: Paradise," from Terra Mater Factual Studios, Vienna. The film, part of a series on this river, features the struggle of a wounded lioness as she works to survive and care for her cubs.

Selected as Best of Festival in Entertainment is "A Stranger in Shanghai," from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Tokyo. The production presents Shanghai in 1921 as part of telling the history of that tumultuous period and offering a look behind the power of China today.  

“The Travelling Cinema,” a work from China Global Television Network (CGTN), Beijing,

received the IQ One World Award. This film follows a father-son team of public service projectionists in their efforts to take entertainment to areas that had little access to electricity after the 2008 earthquake. The government project was to bring comfort to residents. The International Quorum of Motion Pictures Producers sponsors and selects this award to recognize a work of innovative storytelling with universal themes of humanity.

IQ judges had this to say about the China production:

 “Although people often say that time heals everything, we would like to remind people that the scars in their hearts may be hard to be cured, but even so, they should be brave to embrace life. The film shows people who live with scars but try their best to make themselves and the people around them live with more happiness and desire. Their positive and optimistic spirit represents one of the essence of why human can survival and development. The way this film describes disaster and pain is very restrained, and it creates a light and orderly narrative rhythm with unpretentious and lyrical storyline. It is a film with warm and sparkling humanity.” Visit IQ at https://internationalquorum.com

IQ members also select the Best of Festival winners from a field of nominees by festival judges. US International Film & Video Festival has been in operation more than 50 years. Visit www.filmfestawards.com for more details.

"We Are Together' from Europe

One of FilmFest's partners, the International Committee of Tourism Film Festivals (CIFFT), offers a motto of togetherness in this video with the message:

Through shared history, culture and nature, our continent inspires connections and memories that stretch beyond borders. We are all together. We are Europe #visiteurope

Enjoy:

https://youtu.be/aJhSBIXhgfA

Deadline extended to April 15

Please stay safe and healthy. All of us are coping best as possible, and we recognize you might need more time to complete your FilmFest entry. The deadline has now been extended to April 15.

Once the competition closes, judging will proceed as planned. Judging takes place online.

Wash your hands; we keep reminding ourselves of that also.

Best, FilmFest Staff

IQ Award Winner addresses lack of LGBT healthcare

The International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers wrapped up its first day of meetings in Dublin, Ireland, September 2019 with the presentation of  the US International Film & Video Festival IQ One World Award to “What Goes Unsaid,” an entry from the National LGBT Cancer Network, New York City.
IQ sponsors and selects the award winner.
The film addresses disparities in healthcare for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and exists thanks to Liz Margolies, executive director of the Network. Margolies founded The National LGBT Cancer Network in 2007 to address the needs of LGBT people with cancer and those at risk. 
“At that time there were a few lesbian breast cancer programs across the country, but no one was looking at the disproportionate cancer burden carried by all subpopulations of the LGBT community,” Margolies wrote in an email. “Our work consists of educating the LGBGT community about our increased cancer risks and the importance of screening and early detection, training healthcare providers to offer more safe, welcoming and culturally competent care to the LGBT patients, and advocating for LGBT inclusion in national cancer organizations, research and the media.”
The Network began at her kitchen table and grew through grants from private foundation, local and regional health departments and the Centers for Disease Control. In 2010, the Network got a grant from New York City to develop an LGBT cultural competence curriculum to be used to train all 38,000 workers in the municipal hospital system. The proposal included the creation of a video. To bring about change in healthcare providers, we have to change their knowledge, attitude and behavior, Margolies says. The film points out that 20 percent of trans and GNC (gender nonconformity) people have reported being turned away by a healthcare provider, simply for being trans or GNC.

Rhino horn trafficking subject of winning documentary

Rhino Dollars, a two-year investigative documentary on the global trafficking of rhino horn, received a Grand Prix Award in Documentary at the 2019 Deauville Green Awards in France in June. The film was made possible by the director, Olivia Mokiejewski, TV Press Productions and ARTE, the non-commercial European culture channel. 
Filmed largely in South Africa and Asia, Rhino Dollars portrays the trafficking of rhino horn and highlights the transnationality of this crime. The film sets out in March 2017, when Vince, a Southern white rhinoceros, was killed by poachers at the Thoiry Zoo, near Paris. This brought the daily threat to the species in their natural habitats to the very heart of Europe.
The producers took nearly two years to follow the trail of this global crime from source to destination and the profits that it yields for the traffickers and dealers. The film exposes that the trafficking of rhino horn is not only an outrageous crime against a threatened species (all subspecies of rhinoceros rank from vulnerable to critically endangered) but also truly qualifies as a form of transnational organized crime.
Lee Gluckman, chairman of US International Film & Video Festival, served on the Docu jury at Deauville. Read more about Deauville winners at https://www.deauvillegreenawards.com/en/competition/edition-2019.