1. Festival Awards

We are proud to announce the award winners of the 2008 festival. Hundreds of audience member ballots were cast for the 2008 audience awards, while the Jury Prize was chosen through the votes of local organizers, artists, activists and festival staff.

Jury Prize, Best Feature: Fullness of Time

Jury Prize, Best Short: Glory at Sea

Jury Prize, Special Recognition: Cut Off

Audience Award, Best Feature: Inside the Circle

Audience Award, Best Short: This is What you Paid to See (2-Cent)

Audience Award, Special Recognition: Finding Our Folk

Rise Up New Orleans Audience Award: Wade in the Water

2. Festival Highlights

More than 3,000 New Orleanians and scores of guests from around the world came to see over fifty films, including five world premieres, at this year's festival.

The festival raised nearly $5,000 for a range of grassroots social justice and cultural causes, including Women With a Vision, the Community Book Center, Neighborhood Gallery, the Women of Color Resource Center, the Children's Health Fund, Safe Streets Strong Communities, and the family members of the Jena Six.

Sold-out shows included Vows of Silence, Wade in the Water, and Ya Heard Me. Four hundred people came to John McDonogh High School to see Jonathan Demme screen and discuss his film Right to Return: New Home Movies from the Lower Ninth Ward. Full houses came to see many programs, including the films Cut Off; Black Womyn: Conversations with Lesbians of African Descent; and the Fullness of Time.

Festival workshops and panels also brought full crowds to hear discussions featuring local community leaders and internationally known authors, filmmakers and organizers. Special guest speakers included New York Times Bestselling author Naomi Klein, international human rights expert Suha Dabousseh, Gaza-based journalist Laila El-Haddad, award-winning filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons, and local community leaders such as Ursula Price, Asali DeVan, Aletha Strong, Jennifer Whitney, and Mayaba Liebenthal.

More than thirty filmmakers came to the festival, from New Orleans high school student filmmakers to Gaza-based director Laila El-Haddad. Extended discussions included a conversation on the legacy of racism led by Traces of the Trade director Katrina Browne and By Invitation Only director Rebecca Snedeker; two evenings of dialogue on the role of filmmakers in community expression and representation, featuring filmmakers and community activists Broderick Webb, Rudy Mills Hollyhood Khalioskee Labrome; Damekia Morgan and 2-Cent Entertainment; and an exploration on the use of science fiction by Black artists with Fullness of Time director Cauleen Smith. Other filmmakers and artists at the festival included legendary artist and teacher Kalamu Ya Salaam, Against the Grain director Ann Kaneko, and Ya Heard Me filmmakers John Robert, Glenda Robert, Jonathan Spano, Susan LaMond, Matt Miller, and Stephen Thomas.

Festival audiences spanned a range of communities, including local community leaders and artists such as Willie Birch, Ron Bechet, and WBOK radio host Dawn Goodwin, and Tony award-winning poet Suheir Hammad.

Our festival exists to support movements for social justice - not to just show problems, but to show solutions, to celebrate hope and resistance. It's fitting that the festival closed with a special appearance by family members of the Jena Six. Jena Six Parents Marcus Jones, Theo Shaw, John Jenkins and Tina Jones spoke movingly about their continuing struggle, which inspired what has been called the twenty-first century civil rights movement.

3. More Highlights:

Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme presented a discussion with his film Right To Return: New Home Movies From the Lower Ninth Ward on April 9 at John McDonogh High School. In addition to Demme, the discussion featured the film's producer Daniel Wolff, as well as many of the main people featured in his film, including Common Ground Relief founder Malik Rahim; cultural organizer Cherice Harrison-Nelson; legendary musician Al "Carnival Time" Johnson; and community advocates Kyrah Parker; Antoinette K-Doe, and Pastor Mel Jones.

Many people think that human rights film means documentaries, but this year's festival featured comedies, action films, science fiction, animation, and more.

From Caramel, a romantic comedy from Lebanon to Eréndira Ikikunari, an action film about indigenous resistance to Spanish colonization; and the world premiere of The Fullness of Time, an experimental science fiction film from the director of Drylongso and the producers who brought Waiting For Godot to the Lower Ninth Ward. Other highlights included Waiting for Zigzigland, a comedy about a Palestinian cab driver in Los Angeles and War/Dance, a portrayal of breathtaking and inspiring music and dancing from Uganda.

One of the most talked-about events of the festival was the New Orleans premiere of Wade in the Water, a film made in collaboration with New Orleans high school students. The gala screening featured a red carpet for the student filmmakers, and gifts of new video cameras for all of the students, donated by Alec Baldwin.

This year's festival was filled with music and performances. The premiere of the film Ya Heard Me was followed by an all-star concert featuring performances by local superstars Gotti Boi Chris, 10th Ward Buck, Big Freedia, Nobby and DJ Blaq-N-Mild.

Other performances included two separate shows by Hot8 Brass band. First at the afterparty for Wade in the Water, then at the New Orleans premiere of Finding Our Folk.

Every evening of the festival featured breathtaking and important films from around the world, from Taxi To The Dark Side, the 2008 Academy Award-winner for Best Documentary Feature, to new films from Palestine, India, Senegal, Iran, Mexico, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and several other countries.

The festival collaborated with V to the Tenth, the tenth anniversary of The Vagina Monologues, highlighting programming by and about women throughout the festival, and offering free admission to some programming for guests from the V to the Tenth celebrations.

4. Press

This year's festival generated scores of stories on local, national and even international press, including radio shows in Spanish and English. Below are some links to highlights:

Times Picayune
Katy Reckdahl
Link

Times Picayune
Lolis Elie
Link

Times Picayune
Mike Scott
Link

CKUT Radio Montreal - live reporting from the festival
Link

Gambit Weekly
Link

NOLAFugees
Link

5. Special Thanks

The festival would not have been possible without the support and sponsorship of countless organizations, including ACLU of Louisiana; American Friends Service Committee; Amnesty International; New Orleans Video Access Center; Left Turn Magazine; Activist Video; Southern University of New Orleans Center for African and African American Studies; US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of New Orleans; Las Américas Film Network; New Orleans Palestine Solidarity; Latino Health Outreach Project; Children's Health Fund; Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center; The Seventh Ward Community Center; The George and Leah McKenna Museum of African American Art; Community Book Center; Neighborhood Gallery; Ashe Cultural Arts Center; Craige Cultural Center; The New Orleans Film Society; ArtSpot Productions; Mondo Bizarro; WBOK Radio, New Orleans Recovery School District; and the Office of Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu; as well as vital funding from the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Creative Time, the Arts Council of New Orleans, and the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Gulf Coast Fund.

In addition, an entire community came together to make this festival happen, with dozens of volunteers, as well as festival staff and Advisory Board who put in hundreds of hours. Thank you to everyone who made this festival possible.

See you next year!