The Swedish coming-of-age drama "She Monkeys" and the Southern California documentary "Bombay Beach" were among the top winners at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, which announced its jury prizes in a ceremony at the W Union Square on Thursday evening.
Those prizes were the culmination of a day in which TFF and the Tribeca Film Institute, the non-profit year-round organization that puts on the festival, handed out a slew of different awards, honoring three dozen different films with cash prizes, grants and fellowships.
Winners in the narrative, documentary and short film categories were chosen by six different juries, whose members included Dianne Wiest, Christine Vachon, David O. Russell, Atom Egoyan, Paul Dano, Anna Kendrick, Rainn Wilson and Michael Cera, whose last name was mispronounced as "Kera" by fellow juror Amir Bar-Lev at the awards ceremony. Viewers at the Tribeca (Online) Film Festival site made selections in two additional categories.
In the World Narrative Competition categories, Lisa Aschan's "She Monkeys"("Apflickorna") (above) won the $25,000 Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature. "With balanced storytelling that moves between danger and innocence," said the jury of the Swedish film, "this film speaks of sex, adolescence, power, and ambition."
Ramadhan "Shami" Bizimana and Carice van Houten won Best Actor and Actress awards for narrative features for their performances in "Grey Matter" ("Matiere Grise") and "Black Butterflies,"respectively. Cinematographer Luisa Tillinger ("Artificial Paradises") and screenwriter Jannicke Systad Jacobsen ("Turn Me On, Goddamnit") were also honored.
Korean director Park Jungbum was named Best New Narrative Director for "Journals of Musan" ("Musal Il-gi").
In the World Documentary Competition, the unanimous winner for Best Documentary Feature (for its "beauty, lyricism, empathy and invention") was Alma Har'el's "Bombay Beach" (right), which which follows three subjects in a desolate former resort town in the California desert. Purcell Carson won the Best Editing in a Documentary Feature award for "Semper Fi: Always Faithful."
Pablo Croce won the Best New Documentary Director award for "Like Water," with a special jury mention going to Michael Collins for "Give Up Tomorrow."
The short film winners:
Best Narrative Short: "Man and Boy"(David Leon and Marcus McSweeney, directors)
Best Documentary Short: "Incident in New Baghdad"(James Spione, writer/director)
Special Jury Mention: "Guru"(Jonathan VanBallenberghe, writer/director)
Student Visionary Award: "Rooms"(Joanna Jurewicz, writer/director)
Special Jury Mention: "Eva – Working Title" (Dor Fadlon, writer/director)
Tribeca (Online) Film Festival winners were "Donor Unknown" (Best Feature Film) and "Dungeon Master" (Best Short Film).
Earlier in the day, awards were handed out at the Tribeca Film Institute Awards Luncheon at Riverpark. Among those honors were the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Awards, which were created to help filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities and which are presented by Time Warner.
The Creative Promise Awards went to Dawn Porter's documentary "Gideon's Army," about people arrested and forced to rely on public defenders, and Tina Mabry's narrative feature "County Line," the story of a Southern sheriff entangled in a world of drugs.
