Film grants honors trio ‘green spirit’

     (PNAN-CALIF) – “This is the 18th year we have given out these grant awards, and they have now helped 47 emerging artists share their work with a larger audience, pay bills for their film, or get them started on their next project,” said Film Independent Executive Director Dawn Hudson.  “We are so proud to honor the 2011 Filmmaker Grant recipients, and we can’t wait to see what they do next.”

     Those receiving Film Independent’s four filmmaker grant awards were:  The seventeenth annual Acura Someone to Watch Award went to Mike Ott, Director of LiTTLEROCK. The award recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision, who has not yet received appropriate recognition, as well as a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Acura.

     Honoring emerging producers, the fourteenth annual Piaget Producers Award and $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Piaget, went to Anish Sayjani of Meek’s Cutoff.

     The sixteenth annual AVEENO® Truer Than Fiction Award, which is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features, Director Jeff Malmberg of Marwencol took the honor along with a company-funded $25,000 unrestricted grant.

     In addition, Malmberg also received the Jameson FIND Your Audience Award. This first grant was designed to meet independent filmmakers’ biggest challenge today with a $50,000 marketing and distribution grant, funded by Jameson Irish Whiskey®. The selection committee consisted of Warner Bros. Head of Worldwide Marketing, Sue Kroll (Chair), producer Effie T. Brown, CEO of Landmark Theatres Ted Mundorff and producer Gail Mutrux.

     The other finalists in the seventeenth annual Acura Someone to Watch Award were: Hossein Keshavarz for Dog Sweat and Laurel Nakadate for The Wolf Knife; the fourteenth annual Piaget Producers Award were: Au Revoir Taipei and Adele Romanski for The Myth of the American Sleepover; and the sixteenth annual AVEENO® Truer Than Fiction Award were Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor for Sweetgrass and Lynn True and Nelson Walker for Summer Pasture.

     The 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards winners for other categories will be known on Saturday, February 26 and aired on IFC at 10:00 pm ET/PT.

     For more on The Film Independent Spirit awards, see www.spiritawards.com and on Film Independent, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization that champions independent film and supports a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation, and uniqueness of vision, see www.filmindependent.org.