MEDIA CITY FILM FESTIVAL’S 20TH ANNIVERSARY AWARD WINNERS
GRAND PRIZE
LISTENING TO THE SPACE IN MY ROOM, Robert Beavers, US
Robert Beavers (Brookline MA 1949, lives in Europe since 1967). 20+ films since 1966; screenings at all major venues for artist’s film worldwide including the 1974 edition of EXPRMNTL (Knokke, Belgium), the Whitney Museum’s “American Century” film series and solo presentations at Museum of Modern Art (New York); Guggenheim Fellowship (1972). Founder of The Temenos, an archive and screening series in Zürich and Greece dedicated to the films of Gregory Markopolous. Currently lives in Berlin, Germany. First appearance at Media City.
SECOND PRIZE
GRADUAL SPEED, Els van Riel, Belgium
Els Van Riel (Gierle, Belgium 1965). Studies at National Radio and Film Technical Institute, Brussels. More than twenty films and media installations since 2000; screenings at Courtisane (Ghent), Los Angeles Film Forum, Ann Arbor Film Festival, etc. Lives in Brussels, Belgium. First appearance at Media City.
THIRD PRIZE
SUN SONG, Joel Wanek, US
Joel Wanek (Neligh NE 1974). Studies at Webster University and Duke University. Works in film and photography. Four films since 2011; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Internationales Kurfzfilmfestival Hamburg, London Film Festival, etc. Lives in Oakland, California. First appearance at Media City.
HONORABLE MENTION
SOUND THAT and
FE26, Kevin Jerome Everson, US
Kevin J. Everson (Mansfield OH 1965). Studies at University of Akron and Ohio University. 80+ films since 1997. Screenings at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), Rome Prize (2001). Lives in Charlottesville VA. Fifth appearance at Media City; current Mobile Frames filmmaker-in-residence.
REGIONAL PRIZE
PRESENTIMENTS, Miranda S. Dershimer, US
THE COMPETITION JURY
Haden Guest (USA) is a film historian, curator and Director of the Harvard Film Archive, overseeing its cinematheque, collections and preservation program. A specialist in post-war avant-garde cinema, he is curating an expansive Gregory Markopoulos retrospective at the HFA later this year as well as the ongoing “Cinema Dialogues – Harvard at the Gulbenkian” series about transnational trends in contemporary cinema. He is also co-curating a major retrospective about the history and future of 16mm films for the 2014 Viennale.
Gye-joong Kim (Korea R / Canada) is a filmmaker and co-founder of EXiS (Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, Korea), where he curated extensive programs of the work of Hollis Frampton, Nam June Paik and John Cage. He holds an MFA in Film & Video from CalArts and relocated to Toronto in 2013, where he has worked as a member of the program committee for the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and served on the jury of the Images Festival.
Aily Nash (USA) is a curator and writer. She is on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival’s Projections section, and has curated for MoMA PS1 (NYC), Anthology Film Archives (NYC), Image Forum (Tokyo), and others. Her writing has appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Artforum.com, Film Comment, de Filmkrant and elsewhere. She is the film curator at Basilica Hudson, co-editor of Talent Press at Berlinale Talents, and teaches at Parsons The New School for Design in New York.
Oona Mosna