And the TWIN CITIES FILM FEST 2019 award winners are…

Hello FC readers, it’s Ruth here!

MARRIAGE STORY, JUST MERCY, PREMATURE TAKE TOP HONORS

Noah Baumbach’s critically-acclaimed relationship drama Marriage Story tops 2019 winners. Twin Cities audiences honor local productions 3 Day Weekend & Oh My Stars alongside the empowering beauty documentary A Perfect 14.

So, last night Twin Cities Film Fest announced its 2019 award winners Saturday evening, recognizing films and artists across nine top categories. The 11-day marathon of movies, educational sessions and industry events, which showcased more than 120 titles and facilitated a broader conversation around the social cause of environmental sustainability, named Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story as the Best Feature Film of 2019 (stay tuned for my full review!)

“This is fearless, unshakable filmmaking,” said TCFF Artistic Director Steve Snyder. “And in the captivating performances from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, we see two of today’s most talented artists confronting the darkness and disorientation of divorce. It’s an unflinching portrayal of disintegrating love, and in the conversations that followed the screening this year at our festival, it was clearly an experience few in the audience will forget.”

Perfect 14 doc

The festival’s top non-fiction award went to A Perfect 14, director Giovanna Morales Vargas’s exploration of the fashion industry, body image, and the world of plus size modeling. Best Short Film went to Alex Reeves’s The Automaton, a period drama set in the late 1800’s about a young widow’s shocking discovery that her late husband was building a sentient machine.

The 2019 Audience Awards went to Destin Daniel Cretton’s Just Mercy, a new drama profiling renowned civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson and a notable lawsuit in which he fought to free a wrongly condemned death row inmate; Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, an eye-opening documentary that spotlights the influential homoerotic subtext of the classic horror film.

The Best Audience Award for short films went to Oh My Stars, a short film from director Cynthia Uhrich (check out my interview with her) set during the Great Depression about one woman’s fight to overcome personal adversity with the help of two friends — one white, one black. The film I helped produce, Master Servant, directed by Julie Koehnen, was the runner up for Best Audience Award.

Actress Zora Howard received this year’s Indie Vision – Breakthrough Performance Award for her searing portrayal of a 17-year-old living out her last summer at home before going to college in the coming-of-age drama Premature. Check out her red carpet interview of Zora and Premature‘s director Rashaad Ernesto Green:

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Wyatt McGill took home this year’s Indie Vision – Breakthrough Achievement Award for his innovative screenplay for 3 Day Weekend, a thriller told through multiple different perspectives, each one offering a different interpretation of the same chain of events.

Albert Magnoli, the director behind Purple Rain, was bestowed with the 2019 North Star Award For Excellence following a special 35^th anniversary screening of the film.

The 2019 Fun Is Good Bill Murray Comedic Shorts Award went to Fairy Tail, directed by Justin and Kristin Schaak.