The 16th annual Tallahassee Film Festival took place over Labor Day weekend, August 31 – September 1, with 50 films across three screens and over 60 attending filmmakers and industry talent. The awards ceremony capped off the festival with a total of 15 awarded films. Thank you to all the filmmakers and artists who shared their work with us this year, and we cannot wait to see what each of you do next!
Photos by Jessica Schilling, except as noted.
Florida Filmmaker Award
Presented By Flamingo Magazine
The Florida Filmmaker Award, including a cash prize of $1,000, went to Ian Edward Weir for his gorgeous poem-of-a-film Tigers of the Sky, a sweet, short observational nature documentary that focuses on the life of a Great Horned Owl chick born in an Eagle’s nest in St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, and the next year of its life as it matures and starts its own family in the same nest. Filmed over the course of 60 individual trips to St. Marks, Weir’s long focal length and close to the heart story captivated our festival programmers and the sold out audience for the “Florida Gone Wild” shorts program. A big thank you goes to Flamingo Magazine, our Florida Filmmaker Award co-sponsor. Be on the lookout for an article about Weir and his film in their upcoming issue.
About Ian Edward Weir
Ian is a multi-talented filmmaker and has over a decade of experience producing environmental and social sustainability videos. Ian is an accomplished videographer, editor, musician, and sound designer. He has worked on feature documentaries, short films, music videos, public service announcements, promos and corporate videos. Ian Edward Weir is currently a courtesy faculty and post production specialist at The Florida State University College of Motion Picture and Recording Arts. Ian has been teaching documentary editing for the last 15 years and his students’ films have gone on to win student Emmys, Oscars and screen at The Cannes Film Festival. Ian really loves the process of teaching and collaborating with artists to help take their visions to the next level. Ian has a passion for traveling to different biodiverse landscapes around the world and filming nature to help conservation efforts and celebrate the splendor of the natural world. Ian also continues to work on his passion projects, all to the beat of his very own drum.
Directors’ Choice Award
The Directors’ Choice Award, including a cash prize of $500, went to Melanie Shatzky and Brian M. Cassidy for their beautiful film A Man Imagined, a portrait of 67-year old Lloyd, a decades-long street survivor and schizophrenic, as he faces harsh winters and blistering summers, selling discarded items to motorists, sleeping in junkyards and lapsing into near-psychedelic reveries. The film is an an immersive experience in which the viewer becomes the leering bystander who ultimately can do nothing but watch as he disappears.
About the Filmmakers
Melanie Shatzky and Brian M. Cassidy are collaborative artists working at the intersection of documentary and narrative cinema. Their films have screened at the Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno and Rotterdam film festivals, The Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Art, Le Musée de la Civilisation, ICA London, The Museum of the Moving Image, The Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, and Lincoln Center. They’ve won numerous awards for their work and have held fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, and IFP. Their feature debut, Francine, starring Academy Award winner Melissa Leo, was called “raw, intimate and observed with penetrating acuity” by The Hollywood Reporter and was selected as a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Their documentary, The Patron Saints, was called “one of the most powerful Canadian documentaries of recent years” by POV Magazine.
Audience Awards
Best Documentary Feature
Welcome To Jay
by Jeffrey Morgan
Jay is a predominantly white town in the rural countryside of northwest Florida. In 2010, Gus Benjamin, a black teen, attends a party in Jay, only to wind up dead, a gunshot from a hunting rifle through his back. Robert Floyd, a young white man, is arrested and put on trial for second degree murder. The truths that emerge rip open deep wounds from the past between the black and white communities and lead towards reckoning with a dark history of racial violence that includes a shockingly similar fatal shooting that took place almost a century before. Born in California and raised in Alaska, Jeffrey made 15 short films before finishing high school and with the financial assistance from his Native American tribe, the Fallon Paiute, he graduated from NYU’s Kanbar Institute of Film and Television in 1999.
“The killing of Gus Benjamin began a decade long journey for me to tell the story of this American tragedy through documentary film. Jay, Florida is similar to so many small towns across this country that have never come to terms or reckoned with their history of racial injustices.”
Jeffrey Morgan
Best Narrative Feature
Look At Me
by Taylor Olson
A fictional autobiography about an insecure, awkward and lonely bisexual actor who goes on an unwitting journey of self-love in the midst of an eating disorder relapse. Taylor Olson (he/they) is a queer former athlete-turned filmmaker. This is their second feature film.
“We had a ridiculous amount of fun making this film; we laughed, we cried, and we reflected on our relationships with ourselves and each other. I hope Look At Me can do for you what it did for us.”
Taylor Olson
Best Debut Feature
That Alien, Sound
by Brando Topp
An alien sound wave appears to take over a woman’s body through a radio broadcast. Her disbelieving boyfriend struggles to accept her identity and save their relationship. Brando Topp is based in Los Angeles. This is his first feature film as a writer, producer, director, and editor. He wrote and created the web series “Swingtime,” which premiered at the 2017 Austin Film Festival.
“Mia Danelle and I produced this from the jump. Her acting inspired the character, and our mutual commitment empowered us to step into roles we’ve both dreamt about for some time.”
Brando Topp
Best Local/Regional Film
River Obscura: Secrets Of A Blackwater River
by Sammy Tedder
Dark and mysterious, blackwater rivers can be intimidating to behold. This 55 minute film explores a wild and remote river in Florida’s eastern Panhandle known as the Sopchoppy. Musician, composer, cinematographer and naturalist Sammy Tedder reveals this blackwater river from a perspective mostly unseen—from underwater—and along hidden tributary creeks few have explored. Tedder provides the narration and composed the original music for this film which is the first episode of what is to be a limited series about this blackwater river.
Best Short Film
How To Sue The Klan
by John Beder
From Producer Ben Crump. America’s first hate group, the Ku Klux Klan, dealt out hatred and violence for over a century without penalty – until five Black women and a young Black civil rights lawyer finally forced them to pay for their crimes. The strength of these women and the groundbreaking 1982 civil case set forth by their attorney established a legal precedent that paved the road for today’s fight against organized hate. John Beder is an Emmy-nominated Asian American documentary director whose recent and poignant film Dying in Your Mother’s Arms received major acclaim when it was published by the New York Times as part of their Oscar-winning Op-Docs series.
Best Documentary Short
Bob’s Funeral
by Jack Dunphy
Exploring the roots of generational trauma, the director brings his camera to his estranged grandfather’s funeral. This dramedy delves into the complexities of a dysfunctional family and the significance of celebrating a loved one’s life. Jack Dunphy is a filmmaker, animator, actor, and writer from Chicago. His short films Serenity and Chekhov have played at Sundance, AFI, and festivals around the world. His latest short, Bob’s Funeral, won Best Nonfiction Short Film at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker Magazine named him one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film.
Best Narrative Short
The Man In The Blue Suit
by Evan Patrick Adams
Charlie, a lone ranger, must protect Sarah from harm. As a result, Charlie becomes targeted by The Man in the Blue Suit. To protect Sarah, Charlie must overcome his limitations. Originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Evan was raised in the pit orchestras of theaters by a single mother who conducted musicals. This led to acting in dozens of musicals and plays as a child actor. Evan has earned an MFA in Film Production at Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts with a focus in Directing.
“I had recently gone through a period where I was watching many westerns. I then realized that dogs, domesticated animals who speak the language of respect and loyalty, abide by strikingly similar moral codes that cowboys in the movies of old abide by. As the mailman stood at the door, I thought of John Wayne standing at the door in The Searchers.”
Evan Patrick Adams
Best Dramatic Short
Superman Doesn’t Steal
by Tamika Lamison
Based on true events, Superman Doesn’t Steal is a coming of age story, set during the 1970’s Atlanta child murders, as seen through the eyes of 9 year old Harriet and her brother, who are fascinated with superheroes. Tamika is a Virginia native who attended The American University & Howard University with a BA in Performing Arts & Theatre while continuing her studies in film at the NY Film Academy and AFI. She worked at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences helping to research & develop the Academy Gold program and currently works as the Exec. Director of the CDDP – Commercial Directors Diversity Program – a diversity and inclusion program she created for the Directors Guild of America and the Assoc. of Independent Commercial Producers.
Best Comedic Short
Save The Flea
by Michael J. Ruiz-Unger
With their family stores being threatened by developers, teenagers Miguel and Rosa embark on a first date to search for a mysterious booth which holds an ancient good luck charm that can save the flea market from permanent closure. Michael J. Ruiz-Unger is a filmmaker and comic book writer who grew up immersed in Miami’s punk scene. His sci-fi noir graphic novel, Dark Beach, released in stores December 2022.
Best Comedy-Drama Short
Handle With Care
by Michael Glover Smith
A woman and a man go on a date, both for the first time in years. Each faces the dilemma of how open and honest they should be. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper wrote that “Smith has a deft touch for creating characters who look and sound like people we know” and Matt Fagerholm at Indie Outlook has called him “one of the Windy City’s finest filmmakers.”
“This short romantic dramedy, my most autobiographical film so far, is based on an unusual blind date I went on in 2005, a night that has haunted me ever since.”
Michael Glover Smith
Best Art/Experimental Short
Manger
by Jimmy Joe Roche
Manger follows a street prophet as he interprets the Book of Genesis and contemplates salvation in front of an abandoned strip mall. It is a short film, but also a proof-of-concept for a more ambitious feature, Bad Head, currently in development, a meditation on the fractured zeitgeist of 21st century America and an attempt to channel the trauma of living in a “post-truth” age.
“I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, but I have lived in Baltimore most of my adult life. I have always been surrounded by wild, contradictory, confusing people, full of eccentricity, free-spirited with a fervent anti-authoritarian vein.”
Jimmy Joe Roche
Best First Time Filmmaker
Night Milk
by Tiger Hornby
A troubled lesbian, experiencing intrusive sexual thoughts, confronts her girlfriend and the men of her nightmares. Tiger Hornby is a 25-year-old British filmmaker living in New York. She studied American Studies at the University of Manchester and Social & Cultural Studies at NYU. She is fascinated by American subcultures.
“It also feels so necessary to show queer women like this. There’s no one I can relate to on the screen. I want to show the awkward, painful sexual encounters of your youth: as you can with the multitude of heterosexual content.”
Tiger Hornby
Best Student Film
Head In The Clouds, Feet On The Ground
by César Oyarzabal
In the metaverse social platform called VR CHAT, players have built a society of their own that re-creates everything of real life. The filmmaker engages himself in a quest to understand what’s the appeal of having this ‘second life’. César Oyarzabal is a young French filmmaker who recently graduated from NYU Tisch in Film & TV. Born to cinephile parents, including a stage and screen actor father, César’s upbringing between France, China, and the US has enriched his cinematic sensibilities. César has directed over 35 short films. Head in the Clouds, Feet on the Ground was his thesis film at NYU.