4 C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y RECORD June 11, 2004

It’s a Wrap: Columbia Film Festival Winners Announced

“Junebug and Hurricane,” written and directed by James Ponsoldt, garnered several awards and will screen at the Atlanta Film Festival.

“Wrigley,” written and directed by Oliver Refson, was named a Faculty Select.

Film Division studentsreceived $110,000 inawards at the 17th Annual

Columbia University Film Festi-val for works that ranged from awoman’s daily struggle to carefor her child and her mother, whohas Alzheimer’s disease(Extreme Mom) to a documen-tary in which members of aHarlem family recount the chal-lenges they have faced sinceGordon Parks photographedthem in 1968 for Life magazine(Family Portrait).

The student-run festival, pre-sented by the Film Division ofthe School of the Arts, includedoriginal short films and screen-play readings. It took place fromMay 1-7 in New York City andthen headed west to Los AngelesJune 2-3.

Student filmmaker JoyceDraganosky, whose film ExtremeMom swept many of the festi-val’s awards May 7, based herwork on growing up in a house-hold where her mother raised herwhile also caring for her elderlygrandmother.

“It’s a movie about the circleof life, and a woman stuck in themiddle of trying to care for bothends of that spectrum,”Draganosky said. “The situationis such that the child is learningactivities and the grandmother islosing activities.”

Extreme Mom was named aFaculty Select, one of the shortfilms chosen by the Film Divi-sion faculty as the best of the2004 festival. Extreme Mom alsoreceived the Guoxi Fu Best FilmAward, the Lifetime StudentFilmmaker Award and one of theNational Board of ReviewAwards. In addition, prior to thefestival screening, Extreme Momreceived the Cinecolor Award.Adam Stehle’s Soul in a Suitcaseand Keith Goldberg’s AmericanExquisite also won NationalBoard of Review Awards.

Another big festival winnerwas Patricia Riggen’s documen-

tary Family Portrait, whichreceived the New Line CinemaAward for Outstanding Achieve-ment in Filmmaking. In thismoving and insightful documen-tary, Richard Fontanelle andDiana Nash—the only survivingmembers of the family originallyphotographed in 1968 by GordonParks—render their own familyportrait as they recount the chal-lenges the family faced. Riggen,Parks and Fontanelle, who nowworks as a superintendent forColumbia University, recentlywere featured on NPR’s TavisSmiley Show.

Riggen spoke about the sad-ness surrounding the tale of theFontanelle family, and the pur-

pose of her documentary: “Rightnow, there are a million blackkids that live in extreme povertyin this country. So what I’m hop-ing is to call some attention tothat because what happened [in1968] is still happening rightnow.”

While film screenings com-prise the majority of the festival,screenplay readings were thefocus on May 6, with studentsreading excerpts from their fea-ture-length scripts. Rachel Vinewon the Comedy Central Awardfor Best Comedy Screenplay for“Miranda Duran.” JenniferMonn won the Ezra LitwakAward for Distinction in Screen-writing for “Hinged on Stars.”

After the readings, SOA alum-na Sabrina Dhawan, ’02,received the Andrew SarrisAward. Dhawan wrote MonsoonWedding, one of the top 10 high-est-grossing foreign films of alltime in the United States and thewinner of the Golden Lion at theVenice Film Festival. At the LosAngeles screenings, SOA alum-nus Albert Berger, ’03, receivedthe Andrew Sarris Award. Bergeris affiliated with Bona Fide Pro-ductions, where he has producedcritical and box-office successes,including Cold Mountain, Elec-tion and King of the Hill.

The Columbia University FilmFestival has earned an interna-tional reputation as a launchingpad for emerging talent. Colum-bia Film Division students havewon Student Academy AwardGold Medals in six of the pastseven years.

Films from the 2003 ColumbiaFestival have gone on to screenat prestigious international festi-vals including: Berlin, Cannes,New York, Palm Springs, Sun-dance and Telluride. Recentfilms by Film Division alumniinclude Laurel Canyon, writtenand directed by Lisa Cholo-denko, SOA’97; Identity, direct-ed by James Mangold, SOA’99;and 2004 Academy Award nomi-nee and winner of the 2003Grand Jury Prize at the SundanceFilm Festival, American Splen-dor, written and directed byShari Springer Berman, SOA’95,and Robert Pulcini, SOA’94.

Among the leading 2004Columbia Film Festival awardwinners:

Faculty Selects: The follow-ing were chosen by Film Divi-sion faculty as Best of the 2004Festival—Loopy, directed bySeth Michael Donsky; ExtremeMom, directed by JoyceDraganosky; American Exquis-ite, directed by Keith Goldberg;Nostradamus and Me, directedby Eilis Kirwan; Wrigley, direct-ed by Oliver Refson; Family

Portrait, directed by PatriciaRiggen; and God Is Good,directed by Caryn Waechter.

Faculty Honors: The follow-ing were noted by Film Divisionfaculty as Outstanding Works—The Hill, directed by DeborahChow; Junebug and Hurricane,directed by James Ponsoldt;Groomed, directed by JosephRaso Seibutsu; Seibutsu (Still:Life), directed by Joe TurnerLin; and then one night…,directed by Jessica Weigmann;and Orson, directed by DavidPastor Vallejo.

IMAX Outstanding Achieve-ment Award: Orson, directed byDavid Pastor Vallejo.

Kim’s Video Award: Junebugand Hurricane, directed byJames Ponsoldt.

Arthur Krim MemorialAward: Jennifer Grausman andDaniel Weisinger.

New Line Cinema Award forBest Director: Caryn Waechterfor God is Good.

Tribeca Entertainment Out-standing Achievement inScreenwriting Award: “Nos-tradamus and Me,” written byEilis Kirwan.

Twentieth Century Fox/Farrelly Brothers OutstandingAchievement in ComedyAward: Groomed, directed byJoseph Raso.

Windows Media Award forOutstanding Digital Film-making: American Exquisite,directed by Keith Goldberg.

James Bridges DevelopmentAward: The Wannabe, directedby Althea Wasow.

Hallmark EntertainmentProducers DevelopmentAward: Standing in the Current,produced by Lorenzo Gaines.

HBO Young ProducersDevelopment Award: Passage,produced by Xu Ke.

New Line Cinema Develop-ment Award: Live at Five,directed by Averie Storck.