The Tallahassee Film Festival is just coming off an incredibly strong weekend packed with 90 films from around the world, and with more than 50 filmmakers and industry talent at the festival. We want to take a moment to thank and congratulate all the filmmakers who contributed selections this year, and share with you the winners at the 2018 Tallahassee Film Festival.
This year the Directors’ Choice awards went to Mercury in Retrograde for Best Feature and The Longneck Goodbye for Best Short Film. Mercury in Retrograde, a beautiful feature film by TFF-alum Michael Glover Smith, is a thoughtful and nuanced examination of three couples from Chicago vacationing together for a weekend at a lakeside cabin in Michigan. Smith’s next film is titled Rendezvous in Chicago and begins shooting this summer. The Longneck Goodbye is a gloriously lo-fi nod to classic European cinema, eschewing any new wave of the “New Wave,” and instead, feels like watching an Eric Rohmer film on Molly.
The Audience Choice award for Best Feature went to One Bedroom, a smart, funny, and invigorating story that focuses on an African American 30-something couple who, after five years in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, spends their final afternoon together arguing and remember better days, as one of them moves out. The Tallahassee Film Festival was honored to be the World Premiere of One Bedroom, a film lovingly and deftly crafted by filmmakers Darien Sills-Evans and Devin Williams, who we are bound to see more great work from soon.
The Audience Choice award for Best Documentary went to W.A.S.P. A Wartime Experiment in WoManpower, a film by Jon Anderson that expertly blends historical footage and interviews with over 30 original members of the Women AirForce Service Pilots (WASPs) sharing their stories decades later. Earlier in the day, there was a fly over the All Saints Cinema theater by a 1928 Ford Tri-motor airplane (nicknamed the “Tin Goose”), just as the film was premiering in Tallahassee!
The Audience Choice award for Best Short Film went to Cross, directed by Diego Barraza, starring Corin Stuart and based on a one-act play of the same name by Deborah Kearne. Cross is a splendidly acted comedy-drama that follows a woman in her pursuit to save her marriage because she thinks her husband is cheating on her. Soon she will find out more than she ever wanted about her husband.
And finally, the Audience Choice award for Best TV/New Media went to Lazy Circles, directed by Emmy Award winner Marcus Ross, this is the pilot episode to a Kids in the Hall-esque single camera comedy series about the insane goings-on in a small Oklahoma town by the name of Goshé.
We want to thank all of our amazing audience of cinephiles for whom without their support the Tallahassee Film Festival couldn’t exist. The Tallahassee Film Festival, Inc. is a tax exempt nonprofit organization under federal tax code 501(C)3. 100% of contributions received support the Tallahassee Film Festival, Inc.
See you in 2019!