IIFF4 Awards Ceremony

Since we had a small field this time, I decided to award both JJ and Sarah a prize each. So congratulations to our winners! At both their requests, prizes have been donated to Calliope's FET fund.

From Calliope:

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!
I can not explain how much this means to me.
I am so so honored. I am just overwhelmed by how generous and loving our community is.

Much gratitude,
Cali

If you like, you can make your own donation to Calliope, or take part in the fund-raising auction.

Third IIFF Awards Ceremony

The main reason it's been so easy to put off having this awards ceremony is this: when the entries first came in, our Grand Jury immediately decided on a winner, and then our audience picked the same winner. What can I say? We all have great taste. However, since this entrant also received a prize in the last festival, it did create a bit of a quandry for me about how many prizes I could give them before having to rename this whole thing "The VeeMax Film Festival". After much procrastination deliberation, and in the light of the third festival's small - no, select - pool of entrants, I have decided to drop the Jury Prize for this time around.

Nevertheless, the Audience Choice Award was clearly won by Vee and Max for their wonderful work The Recipe. It was not only beautifully drawn and directed, it was a brilliant interpretation of the theme.

Secondly, our Lucky Dip Prize has been awarded to Jen for Baby Can You Hear Me? Her story clearly touched many hearts.

Thanks to the rest of our participants, who also did a brilliant job. I will be in contact with the winners by email about their prizes. If you are a winner, and you don't get an email over the next few days, please let me know.

Roll out the red carpet...

It's Awards Night at the International Infertility Film Festival. One 250ml bottle of Love (kindly donated by the Alchemy Cordial Company) will be winging its way to each of our three winners - and if you missed out this time, you can try again at the third festival - our Halloween Special - screening from October 27th 2007.

But on with the prizes! The Audience Choice Award was well and truly won by Scott and Michele P for Seasons - and well-deserved it was, too. It was great to see their happy ending, even if it did come after so much heartache and pain. Well done Scott and Michele! Love is coming your way - although your entry seems to imply it's already there!

We drew the Lucky Dip Prize next, mainly to narrow down the difficult choice ahead, and if Mr Bea has the envelope... yes, the Lucky Dip winner, hand-drawn by Mr Bea out of a hat prepared by Bea herself, is Vee and Max's Spring! Congratulations Max and Vee, and what a beautiful and heartwrenching entry you gave us.

The Jury Prize was decided, after an awful lot of deliberation, by Mr Bea, who was asked to assess the entries based on interpretation of the theme, originality, technique, and overall impact. I excluded those who had already won a prize - well, I had to try and make it a little easier on the poor guy - and he put his film buff hat on and sat down.

I have to say, he paused and replayed some of those entries several times each over the last couple of weeks, and right up until the last minute he was still struggling to choose from his shortlist of four. He wants me to point out the several things which kept him oscillating back and forth - one packed a full show into a short timeframe, and a couple of others were full of beautiful pictures and great song choices, with nice editing to keep everything flowing along. But he couldn't go past the psychedelia and original lyrics of Mother Earth's Flower Shop, by Mel and Josh - the original Stirrup Queen and Sperm Palace Jester! Congratulations to you both. And much (well, 250ml of) Love.

Really, I want to congratulate all the entrants. You all deserve a prize, which is why I hope you'll join us again for the third International Infertility Film Festival - our Halloween Special - screening from October 27th, 2007. Click the link for details!