Exam
Today Raindance Film Festival announces the shortlisted nominees for this year’s Raindance Film Festival Awards.
The categories include: Best UK Feature, Best International Feature, Best Debut Feature, Best Micro Budget Feature (Documentary or Fiction) and Best Documentary.
All award winners will be announced prior to the Closing Night Film screening of Stephen Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience at the Apollo West End on Sunday 11 October.
Nominations for Raindance Film Festival 2009
Best UK Feature
-Down Terrace, Ben Wheatley, UK
- Desire, Gareth Jones, UK
- Exam, Stuart Hazeldine, UK
- Crying with Laughter, Justin Molotnikov, UK
- Resurrecting the Street Walker, Ozgur Uyanik, UK
Best International Feature
- 25 Kilates, Patxi Amezcua, Spain
- My Suicide, David Lee Miller, USA
- You Won't Miss Me, Ry Russo-Young, USA
- No One's Son, Arsen, Anton Ostojic, Croatia's Academy Award entry
- Vacation (Kyuka), Hajime Kadoi, Japan
Best Debut Feature
- Mime-Mime (Maimu Maimu), Yukiko Sode, Japan
- Belgrade Phantom, Jovan Todorovic, Serbia
- Redland, Asiel Norton, USA
-The Longest Night, TIll Kleinert, Germany
- The Dinner Party, Scott Murden, Australia
- A Necessary Death, Daniel Stamm, USA
Best Micro Budget Feature - Documentary or Fiction
- Colin, Marc Price, UK
- Son of the Sunshine Ryan Ward, Canada
- Bomber, Paul Cotter, UK
- All the Years of Trying, Dom Shaw, UK
- Memory and Desire: 30 Years in the Wilderness with Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time, Douglas Arrowsmith, Canada/UK
- Locked out, Yasunobu Takahashi, Japan
Best Documentary
- A Normal Life Please (Futsu No Shigoto Ga Shitai), Tokachi Tsuchiya, Japan
- Special when Lit, Brett Sullivan, UK
- The Philosopher Kings, Patrick Shen, USA
- It Came From Kuchar, Jennifer M. Kroot, USA
- My Big Break, Tony Zierra, USA
Opening the festival on Wednesday 30th September is mumblecore breakout American indie hit Humpday, starring Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) and Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Hannah Takes the Stairs) with writer/director/actress Lynn Shelton in attendance.
Closing the festival on Sunday 11th October brings us sex and the credit crunch as interpreted by Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh (Che, Traffic, Sex, Lies and Videotape) with the English Premiere of The Girlfriend Experience starring last year’s lead from Raindance hit 9 To 5 - Days In Porn, Sasha Grey, Chris Santos and Peter Zizzo.
Sitting on this year’s stellar jury is: Riz Ahmed (Shifty, The Road To Guantanamo), writer/director Armando Iannucci (The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge, In The Loop), Peter Bradshaw, film critic, The Guardian; actress Kerry Fox (Bright Star, Shallow Grave), director Momoko Ando (Kakera), Billy Childish: artist, musician, poet, writer, filmmaker; Christine Langan, Creative Director, BBC Films; writer and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare At Goats, Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes), Jamie Graham - Deputy Editor, Total Film; Julia Brown - Commercial Director, Apollo Cinemas; Producer Andy Williams and legendary musician/actor Tom Waits.
An outstanding line-up of films at this year’s Raindance Film Festival will be featured across the following festival strands:
Homegrown UK Strand
American Indie Strand
Documentary Strand
Japanese Strand
Symphony Orchestra
Shorts Strand
This year’s new Raindance Film Café at the Vinyl Factory/Phonica Records basement on Poland Street, Soho, will play host to interactive screenings, secret gigs, events, workshops, parties and daily networking happy hours throughout the festival.
The Raindance Film Festival runs from Wednesday 30th September to Sunday 11th October 2009.