Casablanca Film Factory Awards: Winners announced

Awards announced for the first season of the ‘Casablanca Film Factory Awards’. is an IMDb Qualifying seasonal online award competition conducted by Casablanca Film Factory for Independent Filmmakers across the globe. 26 films from eleven countries made it to the final round. Nirmal Baby Varghese, director and founder of Casablanca Film Factory, is the festival director of this award competition.

‘The Maestro’ from Thailand, directed by Paul Spurrier and produced by Somtow Sucharitkul won the best feature film award. Famous American music director S. P. Somtow won the Best Actor award for his performance in this film. American actress Lorelei Linklater won the Best Actress award for her performance in 'After the Night with Valerie'. Notable American actor Larry Hankin won the best actor award for his performance in 'I Hear the Trees Whispering'. Anita Tóth won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance in the same film. British actress Sian Reeves won the Special Jury Award in Direction for her short film 'I Know Something Happened'. Russian film 'Clownery' directed by Dmitri Frolov won the Special Festival Mention Award. Natalya Surkova won the Jury Award in Acting for her performance in the same film.

Jason Pitt's 'Masquerade' (United States) won 6 awards for Best Short Film, Best Director in Narrative Short, Best Actress in Short Film, Best Original Score, Best Makeup and Best VFX. Produced by National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian documentary 'Keni' directed by Sukanya G won the Best Feature Documentary and Best Director in Documentary. Tony Hickson's "She He It " (United Kingdom) won the Best Short Documentary. The Hungarian film 'I Hear the Trees Whispering' directed by József Gallai also bagged Best Experimental Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Trailer and Best Poster awards. The British documentary 'The Forgotten Children of Congo' directed by Alex Tweddle was selected as Best Film on Social Issues.

Chinese film 'KITE' directed by Xiao En Qin won the Best Experimental Short award, while 'Justin and the Werloobee' (United States) by Ken Yoffe & Ellen Weisberg and John Vo was named Best Animated Film. While "Skeleton" (United Kingdom) directed by Katarzyna Adamus won the Best Micro Short Film, Sergio Luis Bauza Jr.'s "Julian and the purple moon" (United States) was chosen as the Best Stop Motion Film. 'Viral' (United States) directed by Alexander Maxwell Adam was selected as the Best Student Film.

‘Mateka’ from Tanzania, directed by Tom Johns and produced by Friday Kyando won Best Director in Narrative Feature, Best Producer in Feature Film. Ochu Kiota also won the Best Art Director award for the same film. Lee D Barnes won Best Producer in Short Film, Best Sound Designer and Special Mention in Direction for Where the Noise Ends (United Kingdom). Corey Davis won Best Actor in Short Film for his performance in Poison (United States), while Thomas Burke won Best Editor for Camping Fun (United States).

Hamid Reza Mahmoudi Mehrizi won the Jury Award in Direction for his Iranian films 'The Game The Doubt' and 'Lonely Season'. Harri Mardlin for "Meeting" (United Kingdom), Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman for "Succor Forlorn" (United States) and Mireille Fiévet for "Under Tension" (France) won the Special Mention in Direction awards. Apart from them, Ken Yoffe & Ellen Weisberg and John Vo also won the Special Mention in Direction award for 'Justin and the Werloobee'. Janne Piipponen won the Special Mention in Documentary award for the film "Police Crimes" (Finland). Ed Vela won the Special Mention in Acting Award for his performance in "The Confab" (United States), while Marilyn Oakley won the Special Mention in Sound Design Award for her performance in "Sabrina * Warrior" (United States).

For full list of awards: https://www.casablancafilmfactory.ml/film-festivals-awards/film-awards/cffa-winners/winners-s1