Ryan McGarry’s emergency room doc Code Black and Janis Nords’ coming-of-age drama Mother, I Love You win the DIRECTV Documentary and Narrative Awards. Audience Award winners include Short Term 12, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs and Sony Pictures Classics’ Wadjda. Short Film and Music Video Awards also given.

After 11 days and numerous films and events, the 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival has come to an end. The Festival closed with The Way, Way Back, and the cast and crew — including Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb, directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, and more — came out to help us celebrate closing night. But before that, there were awards! Mary Elizabeth Winstead was on hand to present the jury and audience award winners for the 2013 Festival at the Awards Brunch, hosted by CHAYA Downtown for the fourth year.

The two top juried awards of the LA Film Fest are the DIRECTV Narrative Award and DIRECTV Documentary Award, each carrying an unrestricted $10,000 cash prize funded by DIRECTV for the winning film’s director. The awards were established by the Festival to encourage independent filmmakers to pursue their artistic ambitions. The LA Film Fest also awarded an unrestricted $1,500 cash prize to each short film category.

Awards were given out in the following categories:

DIRECTV Narrative Award (for Best Narrative Feature)

Winner: Mother, I Love You directed by Janis Nords
Producer: Alise Gelze
Cast: Kristofers Konovalovs, Matiss Livcans, Vita Varpina, Indra Brike, Haralds Barzdins

Film Description: Like a lot of children, 12-year-old Raimonds has his quiet side, his talented side (he plays saxophone at a music school), a mischievous streak and a resourcefulness born of desperation. Often on his own while his single mom works, and routinely at odds with her when they do spend time together, Raimonds finds thrilling companionship in Peteris, a boy who steals money from one of the apartments his mother cleans. Raimond’s increasingly dangerous decisions will have thorny repercussions for him and those close to him. Latvia

Read our Guest Blogger’s review of Mother, I Love You »

****

DIRECTV Documentary Award (for Best Documentary Feature)

Winner: Code Black directed by Ryan McGarry
Producer: Linda Goldstein Knowlton

Film Description: Continually understaffed, under-budgeted and overrun with patients, public hospital ER waiting rooms are by definition seas of misery. The ER of the old L.A. County Hospital+USC Medical Center, which was the first academic Department of Emergency Medicine in the US was, by all accounts, a war zone.

Code Black follows a team of young, idealistic and energetic ER doctors during the transition from the old to the new L.A. County as they try to avoid burnout and improve patient care. Why do they persist, despite being under siege by rules, regulations and paperwork? As one doctor simply states, “More people have died on that square footage than any other location in the United States. On a brighter note, more people have been saved than in any other square footage in the United States.”

****

Best Performance in the Narrative Competition

Winner: Geetanjali Thapa in Kamar K.M’s I.D.

Film Description: The feature directorial debut from Indian filmmaker Kamal K.M. may be called I.D., but this drama has less to do with individual identity than it does our shared personal connection. A carefree young woman living in Mumbai named Charu is visited by a painter who’s been hired to do a touch-up to one of her apartment walls. But when the man falls unconscious, Charu discovers that she alone must attend to this stranger, first getting him to the hospital and then trying to discover who he is. India

****

Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature

Winner: Short Term 12, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
Producers: Maren Olson, Asher Goldstein, Joshua Astrachan, Ron Najor
Cast: Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Keith Stanfield, Rami Malek

Film Description: Working with at-risk youth in a foster care facility, Grace never knows when things might suddenly go sideways. Likewise, Destin Daniel Cretton’s film keeps viewers off-balance starting with its brilliantly staged opening scene, rarely allowing a moment’s peace before another crisis erupts. Having reached a critical juncture in her relationship with her boyfriend Grace is pushed to her breaking point by the arrival of Jayden, a girl whose troubled home life parallels the one she endured.

****

Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature

Winner: American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, directed by Grace Lee
Producers: Grace Lee, Caroline Libresco, Austin Wilkin
Featuring: Grace Lee Boggs

Film Description: Intimate and inspiring, Grace Lee Boggs’ story is one of a lifelong work for social justice and equality. Born into a middle class Chinese immigrant family and educated at Barnard in the 1930s, the young Grace soon noticed the inequities in American society and spent the next eight decades working to change the status quo, becoming an icon of the African American movement. Using her advanced education and intelligence not to accrue vast wealth but to work towards the betterment of all people, Boggs became a true American hero.

At 97 she continues to work tirelessly to educate and activate Americans, young and old, to work for the changes in which they believe. Director Lee (no relation) gives us a writer, activist and philosopher as she works her way through decades of social and political upheaval, inspiring all the way.

****

Audience Award for Best International Feature

Winner: Sony Pictures Classics’ Wadjda, directed by Haifaa Al Mansour
Producers: Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul
Featuring: Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Ahd, Sultan Al Assaf

Film Description: This rousing, pioneering gem–not only the first Saudi Arabian feature shot within the Kingdom, but the first ever directed by a woman–focuses on a remarkable 10-year-old girl named Wadjda, who sets her sights on buying a beautiful green bicycle so she can race her friend Abdullah through the suburban streets of Riyadh. But in this conservative society, virtuous girls don’t ride bikes, and her mother forbids it. The rebellious Wadjda decides to raise the money herself – by entering a Koran recitation competition at her school. The troublemaker must pose as a pious, model student to achieve her goal. Germany/Saudi Arabia/United Arab Emirates

****

HONOLULU FILM OFFICE AWARD for Best Narrative Short Film

Winner: Walker directed by Tsai Ming-Liang
Producer: Chen Kuan-Ying
Cast: Lee Kang-Sheng

Description: In this stunning meditative piece, the walking pace of a monk measures up against the bustling streets of Hong Kong. China

****

HONOLULU FILM OFFICE AWARD for Best Documentary Short Film

Winner: Stone directed by Kevin Jerome Everson
Producers: Madeleine Molyneaux, Kevin Jerome Everson

Description: A real-time documentary of a street hustler running a betting game of finding the ball under one of the three caps.

****

HONOLULU FILM OFFICE AWARD for Best Animated/Experimental Short Film

Winner: Oh Willy… directed by Emma De Sweaf, Marc James Roels
Producers: Ben Tesseur, Nidia Santiago

Description: Fleeing a nudist colony where he witnessed his mother’s passing, Willy has an unexpected encounter. Belgium/The Netherlands/ France

****

Audience Award for Best Short Film

Winner: Grandpa and Me and a Helicopter to Heaven directed by Åsa Blanck and Johan Palmgren
Producers: Åsa Blanck

Description: An unsentimental young boy goes on a final excursion with his grandfather to collect chanterelle mushrooms. Sweden

****

Audience Award for Best Music Video

Winner: Katachi directed by Kijek/Adamski
Music: Shugo Tokumaru

To view the full press release or to download images and clips from the winning films, please visit our Press Center.