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Images Festival Award Winners
25th IMAGES FESTIVAL Awards Announced!
Congratulations to the 2012 Images Festival Award Winners!
We announced our award winners on Saturday April 21 at Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario, followed by a celebratory Closing Night Gala: Yo La Tengo presents The Sounds of Science at Toronto Underground Cinema, then our closing party for artists, supporters and festival-goers. Special thanks to our 2012 audiences and supporters --- see you next year for the 26th Images Festival, April 11-20, 2013.
Our 2012 Jury included Vera Frenkel, multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto, May Adadol Ingawanij, who recently directed the 6th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival and senior research fellow at University of Westminster in London and Ruth Noack, an independent curator and writer based in Vienna who curated Documenta 12 in 2007 amongst many exhibitions and publications.
* Look for our Off Screen & Live Projects Calls for Submissions for 2013 soon with a July deadline.
* On Screen (single channel) 2013 call for submissions launches in July with deadlines in October.
AWARDS
Images Prize
Sponsored by Atom Egoyan, this is the grand prize of the festival, awarded in recognition of the Best Canadian Media Artwork in the festival. The recipient receives a $1,000 cash prize.
Gary Kibbins (Kingston, Ontario) for his installation "Girl Sitting on Blue Chair" which is installed at Trinity Square Video (401 Richmond Street West, #376) and is on view until May 19, 2012.
Citation: The work of Gary Kibbins, Girl Sitting on Blue Chair, awakens our empathy while dislodging our assumptions, which is in itself political, about how the world works.It allows us another take on reality through poetry and humour–a necessary foundation for developing new insights about how we want to live together in the world. We love the artist’s light, yet profound touch.
Deluxe Cinematic Vision Award
This prize is sponsored by Deluxe and honours excellence and innovation in the visual realization of a work by a Canadian film or video artist. The recipient receives $2,500 worth of production services in the Toronto office donated by Deluxe.
Joshua Bonnetta (Ithaca, New York) for his installation "Strange Lines and Distances" which was installed at YYZ Artists' Outlet.
Citation: This is a deceptively formalist work. The rich conceptualist structure of Joshua Bonetta’s Strange Lines and Distances discloses that even the most abstract of landscapes is imbued with the social.
On Screen Award
Presented and sponsored by the Images Festival, this award honours the strongest new international film or video in the festival. The recipient receives a $500 cash prize.
Lav Diaz (the Philippines) for his film "Florentina Hubaldo, CTE" which screened on our closing day at Jackman Hall.
Citation: This is a beautiful and sad work that shows us why cinema remains important. Lav Diaz’s Florentina Hubaldo CTE is a portrait of bare life and suffering. The filmmaker frames the bodies of the powerless in a landscape in which they endure by either taking care of or exploiting each other. We admire this work for its storytelling, its compelling visual framing, and it’s pacing and duration, which are essential to the meaning of the work.
Honourable Mention to Ben Rivers (United Kingdom) for his film "Two Years at Sea".
Citation: Intimate, yet mysterious, this beautiful film is a portrait of freedom. As the camera follows Jake, the protagonist, we are invited to emulate the life of autonomy, which he has found.
OCADU Off Screen Award
Sponsored by the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU), this award honours the strongest new Canadian or international installation or new media work in the festival. The recipient receives a $500 cash prize.
Duncan Campbell (United Kingdom) for his installation "Arbeit" on view at Images at 204 (204 Spadina) until April 28.
Citation: The invisible hand of economist Adam Smith is rendered visible via the Shakespearian tones and Mandarin prose of Campbell’s emblematic portrait of German economist Hans Tietemeyer, the devil in the inkpot of the economy.
Steam Whistle Homebrew Award
Presented by Steam Whistle Brewing, this award honours excellence and promise in a local artist. The recipient receives a $500 cash prize & Steam Whistle prize pack.
Kandis Friesen and Nahed Mansour (Montreal/Toronto) for their video "Tape 158 : Document 2B"
Citation: It is a well know fact that archives are instruments of history-making, but what kind of history is conveyed? Kandis Friesen and Nahed Mansour’s Tape #158: Document 2B is a work that reveals the deceptiveness of archives, and through a collaboration between two filmmakers–one rooted in the Mennonite community and the other not–a new narrative is invented.
Overkill Award
This award was established by the Images Festival in 2000 to honour former Executive Director Deirdre Logue, (1996 through 1999 festivals) and is presented annually to a film, video or installation artist whose work approaches extremes of incorrigibility through form and/or content and challenges our notions of edgy, experimental practice. Sponsored by an anonymous donor, the recipient receives a $500 cash prize.
Jacqueline Goss (New York) for her film "The Observers"
Citation: In a festival rich in snow and ice imagery, the jury recognized in The Observers a special affinity for isolation and chill.
Marian McMahon Award
Sponsored by Akimbo Art Promotions with film stock support from Kodak Canada, this award is given to a woman filmmaker each year to honour strong work in autobiography, the complexity of "subject" and the spirit of Marian McMahon. The recipient is invited to attend the Independent Imaging filmmaking retreat, held every each June in Mount Forest, Ontario facilitated by Philip Hoffman.
Sirah Foighel Brutmann + Eitan Efrat (Belgium) for their film "Printed Matter"
This is a film that combines history and autobiography as they meet in a backstage record of a conflict between Israel as a nation and the struggle of the Palestinian people for nationhood. Layers of inevitable ambivalence towards these issues--as well an ambivalence between daughter and mother, wife and husband--inform our viewing, one after the other, the contact sheets of the late Andre Brutmann, photographer and father of the filmmaker. What we see in Printed Matter is the making of history through visuality. From an accidental or circumstantial beginning, the professionalization of the photographer goes hand in hand with the hardening of the political situation as expressed through the mother’s account of her everyday war experiences. What the film leaves us with is a living question of who becomes the chronicler of history.
York University Award for Best Student Film
Presented and sponsored by York University's Department of Film, the recipient receives a $300 cash award generously donated by the York University Department of Film and $250 worth of Super-8 to video transfer services from Frame Discreet. The recipient is determined by audience vote.
Emilie Serri (Concordia University) for her film "So Certain I Was, I Was a Horse"
Vtape Award for Best Student Video
This longstanding award is presented by Vtape, Toronto's video art distributor and includes a $300 cash prize generously donated by Vtape.
Sunjha Kim (Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany), for her video "[s]"
Tom Berner Award
This award, sponsored by LIFT, (The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto) commemorates the late Tom Berner, who for many years supported and nurtured Canadian filmmakers. The award is presented annually to an individual who has provided extraordinary support to the cause of independent filmmaking in Toronto: The 2012 Tom Berner Award goes to Milada Kovacova.
2012 JURY AWARDS
Our jury felt so strongly about two projects that they added two awards to recognize these contributions to the 25th Images Festival:
Supportive Space Award
This award is presented to Gendai Workstation
Citation: We were reminded by the level of engagement which the Gendai Workstation brings to hosting its artists of how important the context is for the development of an artist’s project. Beyond issues of funding, equipment or promotion, a commitment to integrating an artwork into the space of its presentation deserves to be acknowleged.
2012 Jury Prize
This award is presented to Adam Gutch + Chu-li Shewring (United Kingdom) for their video "Hoof, Tooth and Claw".
Citation: Hoof, Tooth & Claw is an understated, matter of fact and sincere portrayal of the bond between mammals. It’s a complex film in the emotions it connects with in the viewer.
