Welcome to the 2021 Moondance!
MIFF 2021 HALYNA HUTCHINS TRIBUTE ANNOUNCEMENT
The 2021 Moondance International Film Festival is honored to dedicate this year’s film festival to honor the life, the talent and the loving memory of Halyna Hutchins, Director of Photography, a well-regarded Ukrainian cinematographer who is credited with work on more than 30 projects, feature films, short films and TV miniseries, including the films Archenemy, Darlin’, and Blindfire.
Dedicating the 2021 Moondance to Director of Photography Halyna Hutchins is highly appropriate, since Moondance was originally founded in 1999 on the concept of honoring all the talented women writers, directors, cinematographers, editors, composers, producers, and all the other talented women behind the cameras in the international film and entertainment industry.
Halyna grew up on a Soviet military base within the Arctic Circle, “surrounded by reindeer”, as she noted on her Instagram page, and where she happily identified herself as a “restless dreamer”. She subsequently worked on documentary films in Eastern Europe, and received a graduate degree in international journalism from Kyiv National University in Ukraine,. She also worked on British documentary productions in Eastern Europe before studying film at American Film Institute Conservatory (AFI) in 2015 in Los Angeles, and embarking on a very promising filmmaking career.
American Cinematographer magazine named her one of the year’s rising stars. Stephen Pizzello, editor-in-chief, publisher and a close friend of Hutchins’, said she had not only a joyful spirit, but that everybody really liked her. “Darlin’” director, Pollyanna McIntosh, said that Halyna Hutchins was “the most talented, committed, and wonderful artist and teammate” she’d ever worked with. Director Adam Egypt Mortimer, who worked with Halyna on the 2020 thriller “Archenemy,” said she had a powerful sense of artistic confidence and an inspiring openness to any and all challenges. Cinematographer Andriy Semenyuk, a fellow Ukrainian, called her a mentor with a magnetizing personality who stood out for her heartfelt generosity and ready willingness to help others.
Ms. Hutchins was tragically killed while working as Director of Photography on a film location in New Mexico.
>> For Moondance 2022, and beyond, a very special honor, the Halyna Hutchins Moondance Award, will be offered to a winning woman cinematographer, who has submitted her film to the Moondance competition.
SPECIAL 2022 ANNOUNCEMENTS:
• Moondance 2022 is dedicated to the memory of cinematographer, HALYNA HUTCHINS. The winner of the Halyna Hutchins Cinematography Award goes to Emo Weemhof, for his work on the winning feature narrative film, QUICKSAND, directed by Margot Schaap, of the Netherlands.
• The winner of the 2022 Halyna Hutchins Director’s Award goes to Margo Schaap, of the Netherlands, for her feature film, QUICKSAND.
• The winner of the 2022 Halyna Hutchins Director’s Music Video Award goes to Christine E. Whitten, of the USA, for her winning music video, UKRAINE, UKRAINE.