Fests.

The Seattle International Film Festival has announced the award winners of the 30th annual bash and, appropriately enough for a festival that has come to the end of a 25-day run, there are a lot of them. A few of the highlights from an admittedly skewed perspective:

• After 70K ballots were counted, Facing Windows was named "Stellar Artois Best Film," beating out Twilight Samurai, among others; best doc on the same level: Born Into Brothels, surpassing The Corporation.
• In the acting categories: Luis Tosar (Take My Eyes) over Hiroyuki Sanada and Gerard Depardieu; Catalina Sandino Moreno ( who also won the Silver Bear in Berlin for her debut performance in Maria Full of Grace) over Maggie Cheung and Natalie Portman.
• As someone who finds Werner Herzog as interesting as his movies, I'm particularly intrigued that Zak Penn's Incident at Loch Ness has been tapped by the New American Cinema Jury for "its hilarious genre-bending originality and faultless execution."

In other festival news, indieWIRE's "Weekly" lists no fewer than eight that are either still ongoing or are about to open. Brian Brooks has snapped shots at Lake Placid (Scorsese's looking good!), Adam Burnett previews the Nantucket lineup and Sandra Ogle covers the toughest beat at all, at least virtually: Maui (those last two, both June 16 - 20).

Logan Hill picks New York magazine's top five films to catch at the NY Asian Film Festival (June 18 - 27).

Posted by dwhudson at June 14, 2004 1:09 PM