Boston Dispatch. 3.

After several straight days of rain, the 6th Independent Film Festival of Boston came to an apt close Tuesday night, embracing the ecstatic truth of Werner Herzog's latest documentary, Encounters at the End of the World. But for filmgoers, the fest's most winning film was the doc that screened one day earlier. Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg won the Audience Award for narrative on the strength of a single screening and, the cinetrix suspects, Maddin's frank and charmingly loopy post-film Q&A. In documentary, Eric Metzgar's Life. Support. Music., making its New England debut, took home the prize, and the winning short was French helmer Valentin Potier's Tony Zear.

Sundance faves Ballast and Momma's Man were singled out by the IFFB jury for grand and special jury prizes, respectively. But the other winners perhaps better convey this fest's distinct sensibility. The programmers' choice award went to David and Nathan Zellner's grimly comic Goliath, while the grand prize winner in documentary, Greg Kohs's Song Sung Blue, examined the lives of a singular couple, a Neil Diamond impersonator married to a Patsy Cline impersonator, in the eight years following a near-tragic gardening accident. You read that right.

Special jury recognition went to hometown filmmaking duo Robb Moss and Peter Galison for their doc Secrecy. Myna Joseph's short, Man, garnered the grand jury prize, with ailing filmmaker Behn Zeitlin's Glory at Sea! receiving special recognition.

Congrats to all the filmmakers, programmers, theatre staffs, and volunteers for a hell of a fest. Until next year.

More from Boston here; Dispatches 1 and 2.

Posted by dwhudson at May 1, 2008 1:29 PM