The Calgary International Film Festival has released its list of award winners – and Whiplash has won taken the Audience Choice Narrative award, as the festival reached record attendance of nearly 28, 869. That’s a 42% increase from last year’s 20,000 attendees.
For complete list of award winners and more, check out the festival’s press release following the jump.
Calgary International Film Festival enjoys banner year as more than 25,000 movie lovers take in 11-days of stellar Canadian and international cinema
The 2014 edition of the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) will go down as the most successful in its 15-year history, CIFF executive director Stephen Schroeder revealed today.
28,869 movie fans took in almost 200 features, documentaries and short films during the 11-day event, which wrapped up with a sold-out gala presentation of Calgary filmmaker Jeremy Thomas’ darkly comic Ally Was Screaming on Sunday night.
Attendance rose 42 per cent from last year’s 20,000 filmgoers and ticket sales were up a full 50 per cent, setting a CIFF box office record.
“This has been a breakthrough year for the Calgary International Film Festival,” Schroeder said. “Audience reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and many of the filmmakers who attended have told us CIFF is the best festival they’ve ever been to.”
There were many highlights during CIFF 2014—from the North American 3D premiere of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s whimsical The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet and packed screenings of films in the running for this year’s Academy Awards© including Foxcatcher, Whiplash, Mommy and Force Majeure (Turist), to the introduction of exciting experiential programming at venues.
Winners of the Audience Choice Awards, Best Overall Short Film Awards and the Discovery Awards (for first-time filmmakers) were also announced and are as follows:
Discovery Award Best First Narrative Feature: When the Ocean Met the Sky, directed by Lukas Huffman.
Discovery Award Best First Documentary Feature: Queens & Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo, directed by Matt Livadary.
Audience Choice Narrative: Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle.
Audience Choice Documentary: Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story, directed by Grant Baldwin.
Best Animated Short: Yearbook, directed by Bernardo Britto.
Best Live Action or Documentary Short: The Old Trout Puppet Workshop: From Naughty to Nice directed by Judd Palmer.
Huffman said he was thrilled to accept the Discovery Narrative Award for When the Ocean Met the Sky, his captivating comedy-drama about three brothers sent on a wilderness adventure as the last will and testament of their late, eccentric parents.
“The CIFF lineup of Discovery Award candidates was full of such high quality work that this award comes as surprise,” said the emerging director. “While our film does not have a big budget, nor any stars behind it, we do have a strong story and a lot of heart … I thank the CIFF audience for their appreciation of raw, honest cinema such as ours.”
The CIFF team sincerely thanks all sponsors, volunteers and media for helping make the 2014 Calgary International Film Festival a resounding success.
ABOUT CIFF:
The mission of the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) is to entertain and engage audiences by curating the most innovative and compelling films, and
creating remarkable festival experiences. CIFF is an 11-day showcase of up to 200 multi-genre films from Canada and more than 40 other countries. The festival hosts gala events, screenings, award ceremonies and special presentations. CIFF welcomes a large number of participating filmmakers from our backyard and around the world and connects them with the audience through post-screening Q&A periods, mingling at events, and through panels and film talks open to the public.