The 2014 Dallas International Film Festival has come and gone, but in its wake are the films that left big impressions on both the audiences and jury that saw them. DIFF presented its Audience and Jury Awards this weekend, and although the two groups didn't see eye to eye on the winners, that just allowed for more films to get a little love.
The Audience Awards went to Noble for Best Narrative Feature, Queens & Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo for Best Documentary Feature and Verbatim for Best Short Film.
The DIFF jury awarded Grand Prizes to Hellion for Best Narrative Feature and Flutter for Best Texas Feature.
The DIFF jury awarded Grand Prizes to Hellion for Best Narrative Feature, The Special Need for Best Documentary Feature, Flutter for Best Texas Feature, Afronauts for Best Short Film, The Missing Scarf for Best Animated Short Film and A Grand Canal for Best Student Short Film.
The jury also gave out special prizes to Brazilian Western for Narrative Feature Directing, 1982 for Narrative Feature Ensemble Performance, Evolution of a Criminal for Documentary Feature Directorial Vision, Tomato Republic for Texas Feature, Easy for Short Film and Ni-ni for Student Short Film.
The Silver Heart Award, given to the film that best exemplifies the dedication to fighting injustices and/or creating social change for the improvement of humanity, was given to Private Violence, with a special jury prize going to Above All Else.
The jury Grand Prize winners all received encore screenings on Saturday, while the audience winners were shown again on Sunday. In all, the filmmakers responsible for the award-winning films received more than $50,000 in prizes and grants.
If you happened to miss any of these films, you'll soon have an opportunity to see at least a couple of them again. Ni-ni will also be playing as part of the Student Shorts program at the upcoming USA Film Festival, while Hellion, which stars Aaron Paul and Juliette Lewis, will be released later in 2014 after being picked up by Sundance Selects.
The Special Need won the jury award for Best Documentary Feature.
