2013 Moondance Audience Favorite Films Announced

WELCOME BACK TO THE MOONDANCE!

Autumn is here, fall is in the air; the last warm days of summer linger on, and we are gearing up for the one, the only, the official 2014 Moondance competition, opening for submissions on December 1, 2013!

PLEASE VISIT OUR OFFICIAL MOONDANCE WEBSITE FOR INFO, GUIDELINES, SUBMISSION CATEGORIES AND THE 2014 ONLINE ENTRY FORM:

www.moondancefilmfestival.com

“The uniqueness and integrity of The Moondance International Film Festival brand, its global reputation for the highest quality, as well as its important mission and goals, and now celebrating our 15^th season, is a rare and unmatchable asset. Talented filmmakers, writers and composers from around the world submit their work to the annual Moondance competition; enthusiastic audiences attend the film festival’s screenings of indie films, its professional workshops and popular networking events; and sponsors, in-kind donors and friends of Moondance contribute financially to its continuing success, helping the festival to grow and thrive. I am sincerely grateful for all of this ongoing support! ”

~ Elizabeth English, Moondance Founder & Executive Director

Get your submissions ready for our 2014 world-class event at the one, the only:

Moondance International Film Festival

Unique event location to be announced!

The 2014 call-for-entries opens with a splash on December 1, 2013.

Click here for the list of competition categories →

2013 MOONDANCE WINNERS, FINALISTS & SEMI-FINALISTS →

MOONDANCE SPONSORS, SUPPORTERS, DONORS & FRIENDS OF MOONDANCE 2000-2013 →

If you are a 2013 Moondance winner, but were unable to attend the awards ceremony & reception, and wish to have your star award star & official certificate sent to you, please e-mail us a note with your name, address, and the title of your winning project, and we will mail you the star & certificate, suitable for framing. There is no cost for the award & certificate, but postage & handling is only $10 for addresses in the USA or $20 for foreign addresses. Please go to: http://www.acteva.com/go/miff to order your award & certificate.

If you are an officially-listed winner, finalist, semi-finalist, a selected filmmaker, or your film was listed as an audience favorite, and you want to use the 2013 Moondance laurels for your promotions & publicity, please download whatever laurel(s) you need:

Download Winners laurels for both web and print →

Download Finalists laurels for both web and print →

Download Semi-Finalists laurels for both web and print →

Download Official Selection laurels for both web and print →

Download Audience Favorite laurels for both web and print →

MOONDANCE 2013 AUDIENCE FAVORITE FILMS ANNOUNCED!

Check here to see if your film was one of our audience favorites →

FEATURE NARRATIVE FILM

A FISH STORY, feature film, directed by Matt Birman, written & produced by Sam Roberts (USA & CANADA). After his sudden and tragic death, a devoted father’s search for heaven brings him back to his distraught family and his isolated lakeside wilderness fishing camp, for a few precious days, in the body of a wanted man.

DOVID MEYER, feature film, directed by Moshe Paul Mones (USA).  A proper British family advertises for a Mary Poppins-type of au pair for their children, but a 14 year-old Hasidic Israeli boy, an orphan from from Jerusalem, shows up, to rattle the household’s lives in many miraculous ways.

SHORT NARRATIVE FILM

SABBAT EL AÏD (MY SHOES), short film, directed by Anis Lassoud (Tunisia). In a small countryside village, Ahmed is a 9 year old boy with a passion for running. Under the influence and with the help of Ba Zdig, the village idiot, he dreams of becoming an Olympic Champion. He not only runs for that reason, but also because he needs it, it is his vocation, for the simple pleasure of it and to attain a passionate weightlessness.

THE PAINTER, short film, directed by Nate Townsend (USA). Obsessed by events that changed his life decades ago, an amateur artist finally returns to the farm where it all began. One man’s journey in search of redemption, closure, and peace.

PUMZI, short film,directed by Wanuri Kahiu, (Kenya). Pumzi is a sci-fi film set in a futuristic Africa, 35 years after World War III, “The Water War.” The outside world is deemed extinct, and leaving one’s indoor community has been outlawed. Asha, who lives and works as a museum curator in one such community, risks it all for her belief that a greener life exists on the outside. An Africa First film.

FEATURE DOCUMENTARY FILM

WE WERE QUIET ONCE, feature documentary film, directed by Laura Beachy, Ryan Balton, & Cory Sage (USA).  Somerset, Pennsylvania, was a picture-perfect small, rural  farming town, where life embodied a quiet, pleasant innocence. That is, until September 11, 2001, when United Flight 93 crashed in Somerset’s sheltered countryside, claiming 40 innocent lives, and forever changing the people on the ground.

FIRST: THE OFFICIAL FILM OF THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES, feature documentary film, directed by Caroline Rowland (UK). In the summer of 2012, the most talented young athletes from around the world responded to the call to compete in the London Olympic Games.

BAGHDAD DIARY, feature documentary, directed by: Joseph Consentino & Sandra Consentino (USA). Beginning in March 2003, Iraqi taxi-driver Fadil Kadom’s video diary includes his family’s preparations for war, the days of bombs and missiles, and Baghdad’s ultimate fall. NBC News cameraman, Craig White, embedded with the US Army, brings the war into focus, live – from combat to the disintegration of Iraqi civil society.

SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILM

DO YOU REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE WHEN…, short documentary film, directed by Matthew Alexander Levy (USA). Artfully edited to include archival images we will all recognize, “Do You Remember Where You Were When” is a film, by a talented young New York City filmmaker, about television’s unrecognized impact on creating a mythical and pervasive collective memory for us all.

ANIMATION FILM

THE DIVER, animation film, directed by Damon Mohl (USA). The strange and poignant life of a plastic toy diver, as he lives out his days in remarkable landscapes and circumstances: thrown by a boy into a pond to sink or swim with fishes, left and forgotten in a dark toy box with other discarded toys, in this amazingly beautiful and yet familiar world. A startling realization sets in, on a deeper level, as we start to realize that this story may parallel some aspects of one’s own life.

ELLA (She), animation film, directed by Juan Montes de Oca, 19 minutes, (SPAIN). In Palma de Mallorca, through the eyes of a 5 year-old innocent kid, a lovely and moving story unfolds of life’s coincidences, miseries and joys, as the boy learns about an old man’s stories of his ill-fated life in New York, and his long-lost love.

MUSIC VIDEO

WAYS TO GO, music video, directed by David Cho & Evan Urman (USA). A wild, fantastic  musical day in the boring life of a fictional Kim Jeng-un, as a young boy, and his only good day, ever.

DAWN, music video, directed by Nick Dimitriadis (UK). An artist seeks inspiration for his next project, in this fabulous cinematic storytelling adventure. With his incredible adventures into the realm of the impossible and surreal, his quest will take him to some rather unusual places…

MOONDANCERS WRITE US!

“First of all, thank you for an amazing experience at Moondance. It was an extreme honor to be among the winners, and I think it will be a great start to my career. I look forward to submitting a film next year!” ~ Nate Townsend, director of ‘The Painter’, 2013 short film winner.  

“I want to thank the Moondance International Film Festival for the great opportunity to get our screenplay recognized and out to the world!  It’s a wonderful festival, and everyone I talked to there was a person of great heart and vision, working hard to support and ignite social change, as well as telling just great stories about our fellow humans. Keep up the great work! Looking forward to the 2014 Festival…” Earl James, 2013 Moondance feature screenplay finalist, with Karen Walker, for ‘The Rainforest Brought Them Home’

“Be still when you have nothing to say; but when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.” ~ D. H. Lawrence

“Accept responsibility for your own life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” – Les Brown

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby

“Babe Ruth at Bat”

“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” ~ Bobby Unser

“Real difficulties can be overcome. It is only the imaginary ones that may seem to be unconquerable.” ~ Theodore Vail

MOONDANCE EDITORIAL OPINION

“On most Hollywood blockbuster films and several popular series on television, I speak with some personal prejudice; I see many of them as a legitimization of, and financing for, the promotion of gratuitous violence, as well as too often maintaining the unfortunate perception of women and minorities as less than a viable presence and/or a major force in society, and an effort at making huge profits, to the unconscionable detriment of basic human values and the arts. But film studios, production companies, writers and filmmakers can, instead, effectively preserve and revitalize our intangible heritage, cultivate creative diversity, develop an intercultural dialogue, and stimulate this creative resource, through the art of filmed entertainment, which is an influential and very powerful means for communication across perceived boundaries of race, culture, place, age and gender.”

~ Elizabeth English

Festival Founder & Executive Director
Artistic Director & Programming Director
Executive Producer Moondance International Film Festival

“The pacifist’s task today must be to find a viable method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary and constructive substitute for war.” ~ Vera Brittain

HAPPY MOONDANCERS 2013 PHOTOS

& A FEW WORDS

Please email some of your best photos of Moondance 2013 to: [email protected] for the film festival photo album!

 Marla Halperin, Sam Roberts & Marc Halperin

I had the privilege to work with 5 new indie films at Moondance this year: “A Fish Story”, directed by Canadian filmmaker, Matt Birman, where the film won Best Feature Narrative Film. At Moondance we had two sold out screenings, and Sam Roberts also won a special award for Best Writer/Producer for “A Fish Story”, as well as the Audience Favorite Feature Narrative Film Award. “Dovid Meyer”, directed by Rabbi Moshe Paul Mones, had its world premiere at Moondance 2013, and picked up a Best Feature Narrative Film Award. “Our Common Roots”, directed by Canadian filmmaker, Glenn Axford, which opened the Moondance festival this year, won Best Feature Documentary, and the concert film, “We Are Voices for a Future Without Genocide”, directed by Colorado filmmaker and composer, Denise Gentilini, won another Best Feature Documentary award. “Paper”, directed by Ivan Kraljevic, won the Best Short Narrative Film award.

A winning Russian/Austrian feature narrative film I promoted, “Little Dancer”, directed by George Jecel, was screened again in 2013, and won a special Seven Seas Award, which honors films that promote global cross-cultural communication. My client, Nick Lyon’s film, “Punk Love” received a special Directors Guild award at a previous Moondance, which really kicked off Nick’s career as a director. A short narrative film, “Zen Noir”, directed by Mark Rosenbush, premiered at Moondance in Boulder, Colorado, the film sold out, and won the Best Narrative Film and also the Audience Favorite award. “Zen Noir” went on to garner awards around the US, and was subsequently screened during the Cannes and Venice film festivals.

It was a joy to work with these films and filmmakers at Moondance, and I look forward to the Moondance International Film Festival’s 15th season in 2014! ~ Marla Halperin, [email protected]