JERSEY SHORE FILM FESTIVAL 2011 JURY AWARDS

FEATURES

BEST FEATURE FILM

The Mulberry Tree

Mark Heller

JERSEY'S BEST FEATURE

Love Chaos at the Jersey Shore

Thomas Bentey

BEST FEATURE COMEDY

When Harry Tries To Marry

Nayan Padrai

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

Only A Number

Steven  Besserman

BEST EDUCATIONAL FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

Prison Through Tomorrow’s Eyes

Paul Sutton

BEST HISTORIC FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

In The Footsteps of Willie Sutton

Richard Gold

BEST OF THE BEST DOCUMENTARY

7 Years Underground: A 60’s Tale

Jason M. Solomon

BEST ENVIORONMENTALLY  FRIENDLY FEATURE

Redneck Roots

Joanne Hock

GUNS OR ROSES COMPETITION

Shoot George

Adam Nadler

REMASTERED CLASSIC AWARD

Many Masterpieces Become One:

“The General” with music by Scott Joplin

Eric Grob

ROOKIE  FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR

Michael Altino

Parker and the Box

SHORTS

BEST SHORT FILM

Out of Focus

Jim Cocoliato

JERSEY'S BEST SHORT

Only Way Out

David Daudelin

BEST SHORT COMEDY

The Ballad of Sandeep

Derek Frey

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY

Recovering the Anchor

from the Stolt Dagali

Maureen Langevin

BEST FOREIGN SHORT

Renascence

Delia Solari

BEST ENVIORONMENTALLY FRIENDLY SHORT

What’s Up?

Kim Sheridan

BEST SHORT DRAMA

Day of Grace

DK Bowser

BEST ANIMATION

Miscast

Bryan Moses

BEST EXPERIMENTAL

The Tolltaker

Steve Janas

BEST LOW BUDGET SHORT

Don’t Shoot

Michael P. Russin

EAST COAST / WEST COAST COMPETITION

The Josh Condition

Jyrki Rantasuo

SHORT SHORTS

BEST SHORT-SHORT

Your Adoring Public

Rachel Carey

BEST LOW BUDGET SHORT–SHORT

Oh Sister

Susan Hippen

BEST MUSIC VIDEO

Bring ‘em Home

Kyle Mumford

BEST MUSIC VIDEO 2^nd Place

Don’t Wake Me Up

Lydia Galeno

HONORABLE MENTION SHORTS

Club Scene: The Bartender- Adriano Valentini

Free Man- Katie Rotondi

In Memoriam- Cynthia Granville

Mack- Ben Kadie

Osteo- Genevieve  Gilbert-Quach

Ripple Plains- Elmer Atkinson

JERSEY SHORE FILM FESTIVAL 2011

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS

BEST FEATURE FILM

Love Chaos at the Jersey Shore

Thomas Bentey

BEST SHORT FILM

The Tolltaker

Steve Janas

Incendies
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Drama/ Mystery, Canada/France, 130 min
French/ Arabic with English Subtitles
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Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Film
2011 Sundance Film Festival selection

When Jeanne and Simon are read their mother's will, the twins are stunned to receive a pair of envelopes – one for the father they thought was dead and another for a brother they didn’t know existed. With this inheritance, Jeanne immediately decides to go to the Middle East to dig into the family’s history. Simon initially unmoved, soon joins her in combing their ancestral homeland in search of a mother who is very different from the mother they knew. The siblings piece together the story of the woman who brought them into the world, discovering a tragic fate and their mother’s courage. An adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s hit play, Incendies is a deeply moving story that brings the extremism and violence of today’s world to a starkly personal level, delivering a powerful and poetic testament to the uncanny power of the will to survive.

In a Better World
Director: Susanne Bier
Drama/Thriller, Denmark, 113 min
Danish/ Swedish/ Arabic with English Subtitles
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Academy Award Winner, Best Foreign Film
Golden Globe Award Winner, Best Foreign Film

Anton is a doctor who commutes between his home in an idyllic town in Denmark and his work at an African refugee camp. In these two very different worlds he and his family are faced with conflicts that lead them to difficult choices between revenge and forgiveness. Anton and his wife, who have two young sons, are separated and struggling with the possibility of divorce. Their older, ten-year-old son Elias is being bullied at school, until he is defended by Christian, a new boy who has just moved from London. Elias and Christian quickly form a strong bond, but when Christian involves Elias in a dangerous act of revenge with potentially tragic consequences, their friendship is tested and lives are put in danger. Ultimately, it is their parents who are left to help them come to terms with the complexity of human emotions, pain and empathy.

The Mulberry Tree
Director: Mark Heller
Drama, USA, 88 min
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The Mulberry Tree finds three characters at the crossroads of their faltering lives, who through their complex and sometimes unlikely relationships, find self worth, personal redemption and the lost ability to love, amongst the painful and dysfunctional damage of their own past tragedies. While fulfilling his court-ordered community service in the state hospital, Mickey Loren meets Samuel Freeman, a convicted murderer dying of AIDS, whose remaining days on “hospital detail” give him the opportunity for redemption through conversations with Mickey about their own family issues.

Only A Number
Director: Steven Besserman
Documentary, USA, 64 min
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Aranka is a Holocaust survivor who has dementia. Many years before this insidious disease began to eat away at her memory, she documented her experiences and the horrors she endured at the hands of the Nazis. Aranka met Josef in a concentration camp, separated by a barbed wire fence and without the aid of a common language. They fell in love and gave each other the strength and will to survive. Their story is told through a journey of rediscovery, taking the viewer to the ghettos, concentration camps and slave-labor factories as they are today, unearthing the horrendous occurrences long-since buried there. What lies within the tangles of Aranka's memory, lies beneath the surface of these places that time may have changed, but can never erase. Aranka's words serve as a testament to the horrific circumstances of her personal experience and tell a true story of the struggle to survive, to love and to remember.

Winston Churchill:Walking With Destiny
Director: Richard Trank
Documentary, USA, 102 min
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New Jersey Premiere
Narrated by Sir Ben Kingsley, this polished production from the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Moriah Films Division is a meticulous portrait of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his special bond with the Jewish people. Oscar-winning director Richard Trank focuses on the months between Churchill’s ascent to power and early 1942, as he inspired and united Great Britain during its fight against Nazi Germany. Emerging from years of isolation in the political wilderness, Churchill was a lone voice in early opposition to Hitler. Extensive archival footage and rare audio recordings document Churchill’s efforts to publicize the plight of Europe’s Jews and later support Jewish nationalist aspirations in Palestine. This film’s impressive roster of interviewees includes leading British historian John Lukacs, Churchill’s official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert, and Churchill’s grandchildren. Winston Churchill:Walking With Destiny offers a distinctly Jewish perspective on one of history’s most eminent figures.

Bradley Beach...Before Deal
Director: Stevie Doueck, John Brunetti
Documentary, USA, 50 min

A light-hearted look back to a simpler time, to the San Bar and popsicle stick games, to penny arcades and Friday nights on the boardwalk. This documentary follows the journey of friends, living in the Syrian Sephardic Community over an eighty-year period, as they forge life long lasting friendships while spending their summer vacations along the Jersey Shore in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. The film explores the possible reasons why their summer get-togethers in the quaint town of Bradley Beach might have contributed to sustaining these lasting relationships.