Portable Film Festival

Portable Film Festival 2009 - The Winners!

August 31st, 2009: a day of square eyes, deafened ears, downloading fatigue, and some general overstimulation of the interweb variety.

All par for the month of August as Portable Film Festival 2009 came to the careening, rail-jumping conclusion of its biggest presentation yet!

Yup, it was a big ol' fourth year for Portable Film Festival, as we presented 180 films from over 800 submissions from 46 different countries - from technologically perplexed parents in Romania to a symphony of web cam co-ordination from Japan, the best of contemporary storytelling and new stories hit portablefilmfestival.com in a veritable online avalanche of cinematic eye-drooling.

And amongst the voting, vetoing, fandom, following and friend-ing, decisions were made. Decisions wrapped in huge bags of free stuff and 2009 festival accolades, with the advent of the festival's audience-decided awards. At the conclusion of voting, scientists chained to robots chained to calculators chained to a giant, pulsating brain were hard at work applying the algorithm needed to discern the fine line of finality for our 2009 winners, which we're now pleased and proud to be able to introduce you to:

Grand Prize - Winner

Hibi no Neiro (Sour)
Dir. Masashi Kawamuri & Hal Kirkland & Magico Nakamura & Masayoshi Nakamura, Japan

Hibi no Neiro (Sour) was the standout for us against the 2009 program - the enabling of innovative forms of production through contemporary technology, a sense of imagination and collaborative artisanship, and, put plainly, a great idea not reliant on a great amount of money, we're very happy to announce that the web-cam waltz of Hibi no Neiro (Sour) as Portable's Grand Prize Winner for 2009. Check it out - you'll see why!

Grand Prize - Runner Up

Frank & Cindy
Dir. G.J. Echternkamp, USA

G.J. Echternkamp's feature documentary Frank & Cindy is a fascinatingly all-access character doco, whose combination of wildly funny dysfunction and the complications of ambition, the aspirations of celebrity, and the perils of blowing all your money on drugs and dry-cleaning combine to create a portrait of a family, one whose estrangement and endearment has some volumes to speak about chasing happiness.

Short Film - Audience Award Winner

Two Times Now
Dir. Michalis Konstantatos, Greece

Two couples at the same moment in time. The complexity of love affairs leads to interactions that are open to multiple interpretations in Michalis Konstantatos' intense, disturbing relational drama.

Short Film - Audience Award Runner-Up

Numurkah
Dir. Ryan Coonan, Australia

While attempting to destroy their car to cash in on the insurance money, Jim and Steve find themselves in a lot more trouble than they bargained for.

Music Video - Audience Award Winner

Manifestations - Ceri Frost
Dir. Giles Timms, USA/UK

Manifestations stars a cartoon critter named Mr. Chip who seeks anime love in a psychedelic, ever-morphing virtual world.

Music Video - Audience Award Runner-Up

Ambitions - Donkeyboy
Dir. Kristoffer Borgli, Norway

Donkeyboy-the-band provides the in-support group entertainment for the victims of a strain of ambition-sapping leprosy in a music-video-meets-mockumentary...

Look at Me - Audience Award Winner

True Hip Hop Stories - Homeless Em-Cee
Dir. D-Nice, USA

This is the story of a homeless rapper that director D-Nice met on the streets of Brooklyn, NY. After losing his mother at an early age, and being kicked out of several foster homes, he was forced to hit the streets and embark on a life of crime. Everyone deserves a chance at forgiveness.

Look at Me - Audience Award Runner-Up

The Actor Diaries
Dir. Kate van Devender, USA

A comedic take on life in showbusiness, The Actor Diaries follows an earnest young actress as she tumbles her way through Hollywood follies.

First Hand Capture - Audience Award Winner

Memorias de Um Celular
Dir. Leandro Martins & Marcio Soares, Brazil

The life of people found in the memories of a cell phone.

First Hand Capture - Audience Award Runner-Up

Hibi no Neiro (Sour)
Dir. Masashi Kawamuri & Hal Kirkland & Magico Nakamura & Masayoshi Nakamura, Japan

Millions of people use webcams to express themselves everyday. What if these individuals were given the chance to collaborate? This music video was shot for Sour's Hibi no Neiro (Tone of Everyday) from their first mini album 'Water Flavor EP', and the cast selected from the actual Sour fan base, in a feat of international choreography...

Get Animated - Audience Award Winner

Sebastian's Voodoo
Dir. Joaquin Baldwin, USA

Voodoo, huh - angry people with needles or sneaky revenge tactic? Joaquin Baldwin's account of a voodoo doll prepared to go to extreme lengths to save the pinning of one of his cohorts is a strange and surprisingly touching account of the kind of selflessness and self sacrifice you wouldn't normally associate with wishing the worst on people.

Get Animated - Audience Award Runner-Up

This is Not a Fly
Dir. Carlos Fraiha Nunes de Almeida Barbosa, UK/Brazil

'This is Not a Fly' is a story about a man in an art gallery, a painted fly that seems to be playing mind games on him and an angry security camera that will not let him get too close to find out what is going on.

And now the main event; Portable's own best of the festival award, decided after a combination of academic discussion and threatening behaviour by our programming department:

Feature Film - Audience Award Winner

The Old Man and the Seymour
Dir. Jonathan Grimm/Giancarlo Fiorentini, USA

Over 90 million Americans use products and procedures to fight the visible signs of aging. Lewis Plunkett isn't one of them. A 47-year-old, growth hormone-deficient man gets mistaken for a new kid at his nephew's high school.

Feature Film - Audience Award Runner Up

Frank and Cindy
Dir. G.J. Echternkamp, USA

When Cindy married a rock star, Frank, in 1983, she imagined a life of glamour and Grammys. But the song that propelled Frank to fame, Whirly Girl, would be the only chart-topper from his group, OXO. Years later, out of shape and nearly bankrupt after spending all his money on "gas, food, dry cleaning and drugs," Frank is not the vision Cindy married. Desperate to resuscitate her dream, Cindy furnishes a new studio for Frank in hopes he'll record another hit. Instead, he'd rather drink. And now, twenty-three years after appearing on American Bandstand, Frank lives sequestered to the basement where he uses coffee cans for a toilet.

Cindy's filmmaker son, G.J., begins documenting the situation. After a year of filming, what began as an attempt to mock his stepfather instead becomes a candid portrait on the pursuit of happiness.

Supporters

Our Category Winners and Grand Prize Winner were the envy of their filmmaking friends, as the recipients of prize packs fit to bursting with software and services from Adobe, Tubemogul, Inktip, Manageyourfilm.com, as well as dvd packs from Siren Visual, and a bag from Crumpler.

A big thank you to everyone who was a part of Portable this year!