The 18th Annual Bend Film Festival Short and Feature Award Winners

Best in Show 
Youth V Gov
Directed by Christi Cooper 
Central Oregon Premiere

The story of America’s youth taking on the world’s most powerful government. Armed with a wealth of evidence, twenty-one courageous leaders file a ground-breaking lawsuit against the U.S. government, asserting it has willfully acted over six decades to create the climate crisis, thus endangering their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. If these young people are successful, they will not only make history, they will change the future.

Best Directing 
Kaveh Nabatian for Sin La Habana 
Oregon Premiere

Leonardo, a classical dancer, and Sara, a lawyer, are young, beautiful and in love. They’re also ambitious, but their dreams are thwarted by Cuba’s closed borders. Their ticket to a brighter future lies with Nasim, a tourist with a taste for the exotic. An Iranian-born Canadian, Nasim struggles with her own demons and finds an emotional outlet in Leonardo. Power, money, creativity and destiny intertwine in a passionate love triangle with a hint of magic, where cultures clash in a torrid dance between Quebec’s winter and Havana’s sultry Malecón.

Best Narrative Feature 
The Falconer
Directed by Seanne Winslow, Adam Sjoberg

Two best friends, one Middle Eastern and one Western, conspire to steal animals from the zoo and sell them on the black market to pay their sister’s divorce from an abusive marriage.

 

Best Documentary Feature 
Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche
Directed by Jared Drake & Steven Siig
Northwest Premiere

A motley crew of thrill-seeking ski patrollers living the outdoorsman’s dream faces a reckoning with mother nature when the Alpine Meadows avalanche of 1982 strikes, leaving eight people missing during a raging storm.

Best Cinematography
A Hard Problem
Cinematography by Brandon Alperin
Northwest Premiere

After the death of his mother, Ian must pack up the house where he cared for her in her waning years. A strained relationship between him and his sister leads Ian to discover there are complicated circumstances behind the life he didn’t realize he was living.

Special Jury Award for Exceptional Performances and Unique Storytelling
7 Days
West Coast Premiere
Directed by Roshan Sethi

Ravi and Rita are set up on a date arranged by their traditional Indian parents. When unforeseen circumstances force them to live together for a week, Ravi discovers that Rita is not quite the traditional girl of his dreams—but her “bad influence” might be just what he needs to expand his limited worldview. As irritation gives way to intimacy over the course of seven days, they are both forced to confront what they’ve been hiding from each other, from their families, and from themselves.

Best Editing
Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche
Edited by Matthew Mercer

A motley crew of thrill-seeking ski patrollers living the outdoorsman’s dream faces a reckoning with mother nature when the Alpine Meadows avalanche of 1982 strikes, leaving eight people missing during a raging storm.

Special Jury Award for Indomitable Spirit
Alaskan Nets
Directed by Jeff Harasimowicz
Oregon Premiere

Off the coast of Alaska lies a remote island that’s home to the Tsimshian Indians of Alaska’s last native reserve, Metlakatla. For more than a century, two sacred traditions have defined Metlakatla: fishing and basketball. In an improbable journey, two cousins lead their team and town in search of their first state championship in more than thirty years—the only thing that will bring life back to an island that has been rocked by tragedy.

Special Jury Award for Archival Editing
AIDS DIVA: The Legend of Connie Norman
Directed by Dante Alencastre

Seizing her power as she confronts her mortality, trailblazing trans activist Connie Norman evolves as an irrepressible, challenging, and soulful voice for the AIDS and queer communities of early 90’s Los Angeles.

Best Outdoor/Environmental Short
Understory: A Journey into the Tongass
Directed by Colin Arisman
Central Oregon Premiere

Three women set sail on a 350 mile expedition through Alaska’s vast Tongass National Forest to explore how clearcut logging in this coastal rainforest could affect wildlife, local communities, and our planet’s climate.

Best Outdoor/Environmental Feature
Youth V Gov
Directed by Christi Cooper 
Central Oregon Premiere

The story of America’s youth taking on the world’s most powerful government. Armed with a wealth of evidence, twenty-one courageous leaders file a ground-breaking lawsuit against the U.S. government, asserting it has willfully acted over six decades to create the climate crisis, thus endangering their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. If these young people are successful, they will not only make history, they will change the future.

Best Indigenous Short
Joe Buffalo
Directed by Amar Chebib
Oregon Premiere

Joe Buffalo is an Indigenous skateboard legend. He’s also a survivor of Canada’s notorious Indian Residential School system. Following a traumatic childhood and decades of addiction, Joe must face his inner demons to realize his dream of turning pro.

Indigenous Shorts Special Jury Award
Honor Thy Mother
Directed by Lucy Ostrander

The untold story of Aboriginal women and their Indipino children.

 

 

Best Narrative Short
Noor & Layla
Directed by Fawzia Mirza

Noor & Layla are breaking up. Is it the end of the road for these two Muslim women… or is it just the beginning?

 

Narrative Shorts Special Jury Award
The Binding of Itzik
Directed by Anika Benkov

In his online search for bookbinding materials, a middle aged Hasidic bookbinder stumbles across a craigslist ad offering ‘binding lessons for submissive women.’ He responds to it, becoming entangled in an emotionally intense BDSM relationship with a stranger on the internet.

Best Animated Short
Washing Machine
Directed by Alexandra Májová

Wash and love.

 

 

 

Best Documentary Short
Last Meal
Directed by Marcus McKenzie & Daniel Principe

The final feasts of death row inmates serve as the entrée to a salivating investigation of capital punishment.

Documentary Shorts Special Jury Award
The Roads Most Travelled
Directed by Bill Wisneski

Best Northwest Short
Pho the People
Directed by Brady Holden & Dez Ramirez

Best Student Short

Wirun
Directed by Chad O’Brien