‘She Monkeys,’ ‘Bombay Beach’ Win Tribeca Honors

On a day in which Tribeca hands out three dozen awards, Swedish teen drama and Southern California doc take top jury prizes

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.

She MonkeysWinners 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").

Bombay BeachIn 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. Each of the films won a $10,000 grant.

Tribeca All Access also announced $25,000 in grants and fellowships. The winners:

Tribeca All Access Ontrack Grant, Narrative: "When I Saw You" (Annemarie Jacir, director/producer/screenwriter)
Tribeca All Access Ontrack Grant, Documentary: "Untitled Gay Retiree Documentary" (PJ Raval, director/producer)

Tribeca All Access Trans Media Award, Narrative: "Chinafornia" (
Ellie Lee, director/screenwriter)

Tribeca All Access Trans Media Award, Documentary: "Untitled Mu Xin Project"(Francisco Bello, director/producer/director of photography)

Tribeca All Access Adrienne Shelly Foundation Filmmaker Grant: "El Jardin" (Natalia Almada, director/producer)
The Games for Change Fellowship for TAA Alumni: "The Undocumented" (Marco Williams, director)
Audience Activation Grant: "The Ipo Boys" (aka "They Are All My Brothers") 
(Nicole Opper, director/producer)

The Latin America Media Arts Fund announced four winners of $10,000 grants designed to support innovative film and video artists living or working in Mexico, Central and South America:

"The Battle for Land" (Columbia; Juan Mejia, director)
"Cocaine Prison" (Bolivia; Violeta Ayala, director)
"Toys" (Mexico; Alba Mora-Roca, director)
"When Two Worlds Collide" (Peru; Taira Akbar and Heidi Brandenburg, directors)

Insurgent Media backed the TFI Documentary Fund in awarding four additional $10,000 grants: 

"Teenage" (Matt Wolf, director; Jon Savage, screenwriter)
"Of Monsters and Men" (Morgan Matthews, director)
"Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers" (Havana Marking, director; Mike Lerner, producer)
"Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey" (Ramona Diaz, director)

Finally, in a ceremony that was took place at Tribeca but was not an official function of TFF or TFI, the Xtranormal website announced the winners of its Xtranormal Film Festival contest, in which amateur filmmakers were asked to create a two-minute video on the subject of "decisions" in the horror, action or romance genres.

Thomas Bonnett of St. Paul, Minnesota won the top prize of $7,500. Entries and winners are available at http://www.xtranormal.com/bing/.

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