Thursday night (March 9), the 11th annual Gasparilla International Film Festival came to a close with the fest’s customary awards ceremony. Both Grand Jury and Audience Awards were handed out. The GIFF Grand Jury was comprised of industry and media figures, while the audience — well, that might have been you, if you were among the more than 15,000 attendees to this year’s festival.
I’ll throw the entire list of winners below, but some highlights include Grand Jury Best International Feature going to François Ozon’s Ernst Lubitsch-remaking, Manet-referencing, noir-inflected prewar drama Frantz while the Audience Award for Best International Feature went to John Butler’s breezy, slight Handsome Devil, and the Grand Jury and Audience Awards for Best US Narrative Feature going to Jamie Greenberg’s sci-fi pastiche Future ‘38 and Susan Johnson’s YA adaptations Carrie Pilby, respectively.
In fact, none of the Jury and Audience awards match up in their shared categories, which is interesting; the Grand Jury is already a melange of critics, academics, industry people, and filmmakers, which means their choices are something of a middle ground between art and commerce. The audience picks skew crowdpleasing, which is no surprise; even the awards at niche festivals like Austin’s genre-heavy Fantastic Fest tend to get curved toward the most digestible material.
If you attended GIFF ‘17, do the Audience Awards line up with your choices? Were your fellow filmgoers way off the mark? Is democracy a broken system?
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Grand Jury Best US Narrative Feature: Future ’38, directed by Jamie Greenberg
Grand Jury Best International Feature: Frantz, directed by François Ozon
Grand Jury Best Performance U.S. Narrative: Demitri Martin, Dean, directed by Demitri Martin
Grand Jury Best Performance International Narrative: Paula Beer, Frantz
Grand Jury Best Documentary Feature: Finding Oscar, directed by Ryan Suffren
Grand Jury Best Florida Production: Turtle Tale, directed by Luc Campeau
Grand Jury Best Short Film: “Undertaking,” directed by Kevin James O’Neill.
– Special Mention for “Broken Pines,” directed by Annie Pace
Grand Jury Best College Short: “For The Record,” directed by Justin Burt
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Audience Award Best US Feature: Carrie Pilby, directed by Susan Johnson
Audience Award Best International Feature: Handsome Devil, directed by John Butler
Audience Award Best Florida Production: The Lost Digit, directed by Garrett Brown
Audience Award Best Documentary Feature: Score, directed by Matt Schrader
Audience Award Best Short Film: "Darryl And His Friends," directed by Evan Smith
Audience Award Best College Short Film: "Stutter," directed by Ivo Huahua
Audience Award Best University of Tampa Short: “The Nether World,” directed by Creed Smith
This article appears in Mar 9-16, 2017.