‘THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS’ TAKES HOME THE DORFMAN BEST FILM AWARD AS THE 22nd UK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL WINNERS ARE ANNOUNCED
UK, London: Thursday 22rd November 2018 – The UK Jewish Film Festival are thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s awards following this evening’s Closing Night Gala award ceremony at London’s Curzon Mayfair.
The festival awards recognize achievement in both fiction and documentary feature-length films, with The Dorfman Foundation sponsoring the festival’s ‘Best Film’ award. The UK Jewish Film Festival are determined to ensure that nurturing and supporting new creative talent is at the heart of the festival.
The festival awards this year were:
Dorfman Best Film Award – Supported by The Dorfman Foundation
Recognising powerful and outstanding filmmaking in both fiction and documentary films.
Best Debut Feature Award
An award for new filmmaking talent that displays originality and freshness of vision from a first-time fiction feature film.
Best Screenplay Award
Presented to acknowledge excellence in screenwriting in a fiction feature film.
Audience Choice Award
Audience’s favourite film at this year’s festival.
WINNERS:
Dorfman Best Film Award – Supported by The Dorfman Foundation
Winner: Three Identical Strangers byTim Wardle
Jury: Michael Kuhn (Head of Jury), Clare Binns, Henry Goodman, Anita Land, Andrew Pulver, Michael Rose
“Three Identical Strangers is a joy to watch and, like an onion, reveals itself layer upon layer. Both terrific entertainment and a serious and very moving story, the film is cleverly constructed as an unusual mixture of documentary, drama and thriller. The jury was delighted to award the prize to this impressive film.”
Michael Kuhn, Head of Jury, Dorfman Best Film Award 2018, UK Jewish Film Festival
The award was be presented by film producer Michael Kuhn to the film’s producer Dimitri Doganis.
Best Debut Feature Award
Winner: Driver by Yehonatan Indursky
Jury: Claudia Rosencrantz (Head of Jury), Chris Auty, Ben Caplan, Paul Morrison, Dianne Nelmes, Carol Russell
“The jury were delighted and impressed by ‘Driver’, a beautiful, moving and funny exploration of a father and his daughter and of the moral gray areas he navigates within an orthodox religious community. Powerful and surprising this is the unusual and often raw tale of a man whose job is coaching people to tell their stories but is unable to tell his own.”
Claudia Rosencrantz, Head of Jury, Best Debut Feature Award 2018, UK Jewish Film Festival
The award was presented by TV producer Claudia Rosencrantz to the film’s director Yehonatan Indursky.
Best Screenplay Award
Winner: Death of a Poetess, screenplay by Dana Goldberg and Efrat Mishori
Jury: Nik Powell (Head of Jury), Josh Appignanesi, Philippa Goslett, Amy Rosenthal, Georgia Slowe, Derek Wax
“This provocative and intriguing drama, with its naturalistic, quasi-documentary style, hugely impressed the jury. An elliptical portrayal of a deeply troubling story that stays with you long after the film has ended.”
Nik Powell, Head of Jury, Best Screenplay Award, UK Jewish Film Festival
The award will be presented by film producer and Head of Jury Nik Powell to the film’s co-screenwriter Dana Goldberg.
Audience Choice Award
Winner: Forgotten Soldier. Director. Lucile Smith and Paul Goldin
Chief Executive of UK Jewish Film, Michael Etherton said: “Innovative approaches to filmmaking were among the stand-out themes of the awards made by this year’s juries at the UK Jewish Film Festival. We were privileged to host these outstanding jurors from across the UK film industry and they were particularly impressed by the quality of the films in competition this year. ‘Three Identical Strangers’ is the extraordinary true story that is already making waves, brilliantly told and expertly crafted; ‘Driver’ takes a gentle and surprising look at a little-known Orthodox community, and ‘Death of a Poetess’ mixes documentary and drama techniques to highly original and disturbing effect.”
For more information about the festival please visit: http://ukjewishfilm.org/
FULL AWARDS NOMINEES AND JURIES
Dorfman Best Film Award – Supported by The Dorfman Foundation
Nominees
Three Identical Strangers – Winner
Tim Wardle| UK, USA| 2018 | 96’
The Accountant of Auschwitz
Matthew Shoychet| Canada | 2018 | 78’
Foxtrot
Samuel Maoz| Canada, France, Germany, Israel | 2017 | 112’
Promise at Dawn
Eric Barbier| Belgium, France| 2017 | 131’
The Waldheim Waltz
Ruth Beckermann| Austria| 2018 | 94’
Working Woman
Michal Aviad| Israel| 2018 | 93’
Jury
Michael Kuhn (Head of Jury)
Michael is a film producer and CEO of Qwerty Films. With Qwerty Michael has produced 11 features, including Florence Foster Jenkins, The Duchessand Suite Française. As CEO of Polygram Filmed Entertainment, he produced over 120 feature films, including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Trainspotting, Being John Malkovich, Notting Hill and Fargo, amassing 15 Oscars. Michael was awarded the BAFTA Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award in 1999.
Anita Landis
Anita is one of the UK’s leading talent agents. She specialises in news, current affairs and specialist factual presenters. She has recently partnered with Guy Freeman in Livewire Pictures to produce entertainment and music shows and live events; she has been an executive producer of music programming for both the BBC and Sky Arts. Recent projects have included Don Black: A Life in Song, Tim Rice: A Life in Song and Burt Bacharach: A Life in Song.
Clare Binns
Clare has worked in the film industry for 40 years. Starting out as an usher and projectionist, she then worked her way up to running the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton and operating a network of cinemas across the UK under the banner Zoo Cinemas. She is now the Joint Managing Director of Picturehouse and is involved in all aspects of growing and running the most innovative and successful neighbourhood cinema group in the UK.
Andrew Pulver
Now Film Editor at The Guardian, which he joined in 1994, Andrew has also written for a number of other publications including Time Out, the New Statesman and City Limits. He is an award-winning short filmmaker, and has published a number of books, including the BFI Classic study of Night and the City.
Henry Goodman
Henry has appeared on television and radio, in film and in the theater. His achievements include the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a musical playing Charles Guiteau in Assassins at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Sam Mendes in 1993, and the Olivier Award for Best Actor for Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the National Theatre directed by Trevor Nunn in 2000.
Michael Rose
Michael is an award-winning producer and co-founder of Magic Light Pictures. Recent work includes the Oscar-nominated animated films Chico & Rita, The Gruffalo and Revolting Rhymes. He headed the feature division of UK studio Aardman and executive produced Chicken Run and the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. He also produced Nick Park’s Oscar winning Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave.
Best Debut Feature Award
Nominees
Driver – Winner
Yehonatan Indursky| Israel| 2017 | 92’
Closeness
Kantemir Balagov| Russia| 2017 | 118’
Doubtful
Eliran Elya| Israel | 2017 | 88’
Outdoors
Asaf Saban| Israel | 2017 | 80’
Red Cow
Tsivia Barkai| 2018 | 90’
Winter Hunt
Astrid Schult| Germany| 2017 | 75’
Jury
Claudia Rosencrantz (Head of Jury)
Claudia is an award-winning producer, who has held many senior positions in TV, including Controller of Entertainment at ITV, Director of Television for Virgin Media and CEO of Jamie Oliver Media Group. She was responsible for commissioning and originating some of the world’s most successful entertainment formats, including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, X-Factor and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!.
Paul Morrison
Paul is a filmmaker. His first feature, Solomon & Gaenor, was nominated for an Academy Award in the Foreign Language Film Category. His second feature Wondrous Oblivion, about the tensions between a Jewish refugee family and their Afro-Caribbean neighbours, also won many awards. He is about to start shooting 23 Walks, an older person’s love story, and is raising finance on the third installment in his British and Jewish film trilogy, The Leningrad Gig.
Chris Autyhas
Chris worked as a producer with directors such as Michael Winterbottom, Pawel Pawlikowski, David Croenberg and Bernardo Bertolucci. He is currently Head of Producing at the National Film and Television School, where he has established new courses in Marketing & Distribution, and a unique cross-media entrepreneurship programme backed by Ingenious Media and Sir Richard Branson. He is a former board member of the UK Film Council and the European Film Academy.
Dianne Nelmesserves
As Executive Producer of Liberty Bell Productions at Avalon Entertainment Limited Dianne has launched several ground-breaking factual entertainment series as well as hit ITV entertainment formats. She was the first, and only, female executive producer of World in Action and was Controller of Factual Programmes at Granada Television. At ITV’s Network Centre, she created the hit lunchtime show Loose Women and won ITV every single British documentary award for the programme on child poverty, Kelly And Her Sisters.
Ben Caplan
Ben is a professional actor and director. He trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and has appeared in numerous stage productions, TV shows and films, including Two Thousand Years at the National Theatre, Call the Midwife on BBC, and the film Driver (2009). He also co-produced the stage adaptation of Everything Is Illuminated at the Hampstead Theatre.
Carol Russell
Carol originally trained as an actor, turned to writing novels and screenplays. Her first novel Reunion was shortlisted for the Saga Prize. Her screenplay House of Usher was one of six short films made by Crucial Productions as part of the BBC’s Windrush series. She is now a lecturer at the London Film School.
Best Screenplay Award
Nominees
Death of a Poetess – Winner
Dana Goldberg & Efrat Mishori| Israel| 2017 | 77’
Budapest Noir
Éva Gárdos| Hungary| 2017 | 95’
Foxtrot
Samuel Maoz| Canada, France, Germany, Israel | 2017 | 112’
Promise at Dawn
Eric Barbier| Belgium, France| 2017 | 131’
To Dust
Shawn Snyder| USA| 2017 | 90’
Winter Hunt
Astrid Schult| Germany| 2017 | 75’
Jury
Nik Powell (Head of Jury)
Nik is former producer and director of the National Film and Television School and has also been prominent in the music and film industry since the 1970s. His production companies won many Academy Awards and Golden Globes for films including Mona Lisa and The Crying Game. Nik is also the Chairman of the Board of the European Film Academy and a member of the BAFTA Board of Trustees.
Amy Rosenthal
Amy is an acclaimed playwright, whose awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Sunday Times Drama Award. Work for radio includes an adaptation of Jack Rosenthal’s Bar Mitzvah Boy (2011) for BBC Radio 4. Amy’s short film That Woman premiered at the UK Jewish Film Festival in 2012. Amy is currently developing a musical The Queen and I for the Arcola Theatre and a commission from the Everyman Theatre.
Josh Appignanesi
Josh is the writer/director behind the award-winning religious psychodrama Song of Songs (International Film Festival Rotterdam, Edinburgh International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival) and David Baddiel-scripted ethnic comedy The Infidel (Tribeca Film Festival). He followed with his widely acclaimed creative documentary feature The New Man. This year brings the surrealist #MeToo thriller, Female Human Animal (Sheffield Doc/Fest).
Georgia Slowe
Georgia is an Olivier Award-nominated actress and former member of the RSC. She has numerous international film and television credits and is most recognisable from Emmerdale, where she played Perdita Hyde Sinclair for two and a half years.
Philippa Goslett
Phillipa is a screenwriter. Her feature films include: Little Ashes, directed by Paul Morrison, How to Talk to Girls at Parties (a collaboration with director John Cameron Mitchell, adapting Neil Gaiman’s short story) and Mary Magdalene, directed by Garth Davis. Philippa is currently working on a variety of film projects including Cowboy Bob for Michael Showalter and Fox Searchlight and Girl in the Dark for Seesaw/F4. In TV Philippa is developing original series with the BBC and FX.
Derek Wax
Derek heads up Wild Mercury Productions, which he launched in 2016 after 12 years as Executive Producer at Kudos. His many credits include the BAFTA-winning mini-series Sex Traffic (C4) and Occupation (BBC1), the Emmy award-winning The Hour (BBC2) and International Emmy winningCapital (BBC1), three series of hit show Humans (C4), and Troy, Fall of A City (BBC1/Netflix).
About UK Jewish Film
At the core of UK Jewish Film’s values is the notion that film is universal. It crosses cultures and divides and has the ability to unite, engage and educate diverse audiences through the telling of cinematic stories that provide varied perspectives on Jewish and Israeli life and culture.
UK Jewish Film aims to develop a culture where Jewish film is recognised and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British cinema culture.
UK Jewish Film welcomed 30,000 visitors last year through its flagship, annual UK Jewish Film Festival, its international festivals, as well as its 450 additional year-round screenings and previews at venues across London and the UK. Its wide range of films includes feature films, documentaries, shorts and archive films, which reflect the diversity of Jewish and Israeli life and culture. Since its inception, UK Jewish Film has welcomed over 300,000 visitors. Its popular video on demand platform brings its unique provision of film to many more. The organisation also runs acclaimed education programmes that reach hundreds of young people each year including through its schools’ programme harnessing the power of film to combat antisemitism.
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