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More on Austinite’s big win
Here are some excerpts of the L.A. Film Festival’s news release about the Target Filmmaker Award, won by Austinite Steve Collins.
2006 LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES TARGET AWARD WINNERS AT SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE EVENT
Target Filmmaker Award (for Best Narrative Feature)
Winner: “Gretchen” written/directed by Steve Collins Credits: Producers Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Anish Savjani Cast: Courtney Davis, John Merriman, Steve Root, Becky Ann Baker
LOS ANGELES (June 29, 2006) – Film Independent announced the winners of the Target Filmmaker Awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Spirit of Independence event honoring Charlize Theron on Wednesday, June 28. These awards, presented by Virginia Madsen and Jimmy Smits, include the Target Filmmaker Award (for Best Narrative Feature), which went to Steve Collins for “Gretchen,” and the Target Documentary Award (for Best Documentary Feature), which went to Amy Berg for “Deliver Us From Evil.”
This year the Festival received more than 4,300 submissions from filmmakers around the world with the final selections representing several World, North American, and U.S. premieres.
“We are honored to award Steve Collins’s ‘Gretchen’ and Amy Berg’s ‘Deliver Us from Evil’ with this year’s Target Filmmaker Awards, as these films exemplify the talent, diversity and uniqueness that make the Los Angeles Film Festival a world-class event,â€? said Festival Director Rich Raddon. “We greatly appreciate Target for their continuing support of the festival and the filmmakers.â€?
In Steve Collins’s “Gretchen,” the title character has bigger problems than abysmal fashion sense: She’s 17, painfully awkward and stuck in the most unforgiving place on earth — high school. When her obsession with school bad boy Ricky gets out of hand, her mother sends her to an emotional treatment center to recover. She has to travel elsewhere, however, to truly begin to understand why she fixates on the wrong kind of guy. Starring Courtney Davis as the perpetually uncomfortable Gretchen, Steve Collins’ first feature is a humorously deadpan yet poignant reminder of how the smallest moments can lead to extreme adolescent drama.
In awarding Gretchen with the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature, the jury stated that they chose the film for its “distinctive vision and truthfulness to its characters, which makes us really want to see what the director will do next.�
The Narrative Feature Competition jury was comprised of Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan (director, Torino Film Festival), David Gordon Green (director, “George Washington”), and Danielle Renfrew (producer, “Groove,” “November”).
The Target Filmmaker Award carries an unrestricted cash prize of $50,000 funded by Target, offering the financial means for filmmakers to transfer their vision to the screen. The award recognizes the finest American narrative film in competition. The award is given to the winning director of the Narrative Feature Competition.
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By Una
June 30, 2006 7:15 PM | Link to this
When can we see it?