by Kyna Morgan
@HerFilmProject

The Guldbagge Award, Sweden's top film honor awarded by the Swedish Film Institute, turns 50 this year.  Winners across 19 categories will be presented with the coveted red and gold beetle (named for the actual beetle, the "Guldbagge"), perhaps one of the most unique designs for a film award in the world.  The awards also include the Gullspira Children's Film Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award.  Nominations for Sweden's national film award were decided in early December through a voting committee of 45 members.  Women made a great showing in a number of categories, which is not surprising given the cultural zeitgeist that makes things like the Swedish Film Institute's focus on gender equity behind the camera as well as the recent installation of a Bechdel Test-passing standard for films in Swedish theaters possible.  To read through the list of all nominees, click here.  The awards will be presented on January 20 in Stockholm.

BEST DIRECTOR

While only one of the three directors nominated was a female director, Anna Odell, she was also nominated in the Best Screenplay category for the same film, The Reunion (Återträffen).

by Lotus Wollschlager

Tiny Furniture, a film by Lena Dunham, is set in New York City and follows the life of Aura.  She has just gotten out of a long term relationship and graduated from college.  She moves home with her Mom and younger sister to get her bearings.  Her mother (played by her real life mother) is a well-known artist that photographs miniature things, including furniture.  She is an aspiring filmmaker and had already released a few things online during college.  Her younger sister Nadine (her real life younger sister) gives her a hard time about being home and keeps letting her know about rules to follow at home.

Aura rekindles a childhood friendship with Charlotte after seeing her at a party.  Her mother thinks she is a bad influence and doesn’t want Aura hanging out with her.  Charlotte helps her get a job at a nearby restaurant as a day hostess where she has to answer the phones and take reservations.  She meets Keith, a sous chef, who is standoffish at first but gets interested once he finds out that her friend Charlotte can get him some Vicodin.  He asks her to meet up with him after work to hook him up with the drugs and he stands her up.  She ends up giving him another chance after he shows up to her art show.

She also meets Jed at the same party that she first spotted Charlotte.  He does some comedy bits on YouTube and is in town from Chicago on a business trip.  Her Mom and sister are gone for the week looking at colleges so she offers to let him stay at her place.  She persuades her mom to let him stay a few more nights but she finally kicks him out after he gets a bit too comfortable.  He is a bit of a moocher and doesn’t really seem like he really had any plans of finding another place to stay while in town.

The film won the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival.  Tiny Furniture is somewhat autobiographical because Dunham’s mother (Laurie Simmons) really is an artist and uses interesting objects, such as dollhouses, in her photography.  I appreciated the writing style and authenticity that Lena Dunham brought to the film.  I mean, who hasn’t fumbled along at some point in their life while trying to figure out how they fit in the world?  Her main character has a pity party for herself at times but manages to make an effort to keep putting herself out there. 

by Kyna Morgan

Awards were passed out in Park City, Utah, last night as the Sundance Film Festival wound to an end.  Several women directors and screenwriters walked away with major awards for what looked to be some incredible films.  Here is the list below of the female award winners.  (To see who won in the shorts category, click here.)

JILL SOLOWAY
U.S. Dramatic Directing Award for Afternoon Delight

Soloway brought her short film Una Hora Por Favora to Sundance in 2012.

Facebook page

LAKE BELL
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for In a World...

Bell also served as one of the film's four producers.

Interview with Lake Bell:

MICHELE STEPHENSON (with Joe Brewster)
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for American Promise

Official website 

Trailer:

JEHANE NOUJAIM
World Cinema Documentary Audience Award for The Square (Al Midan)

Noujaim is also the director of the brilliant documentary film Control Room which screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance page about the film

MELINA POTA
Co-writer of Circles, which was awarded the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award

Trailer:

KALYANEE MAM
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize - Documentary for A River Changes Course

This film is Mam's directorial debut.  She is also a cinematographer and was one of two cinematographers on the documentary film Inside Job which screened at Sundance in 2010.

Official website

Trailer:

TINATIN GURCHIANI
World Cinema Documentary Directing Award for The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear

Gurchiani's documentary was acquired early on during this year's festival by Icarus Films for North American distribution.

Facebook page
Deckert Distribution 

Trailer:

by Kyna Morgan

Sundance announced the winners of the Short Film Jury Awards on January 22.  With over 8,000 shorts submitted, 65 shorts were chosen to screen and only 14 were candidates in competition.  Awards were given out in seven categories: Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Fiction, International Fiction, Non-Fiction, Animation, Acting and the Special Jury.  With such a good showing of women filmmakers in the Shorts Program this year (with films in competition), it's disappointing to see the lack of women recipients of Jury Awards.

Finnish filmmaker Jenni Toivoniemi won the Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction for her film The Date which she both wrote and directed (the only woman filmmaker awarded).  She's a cofounder of the production company Tuffi Films in Helsinki, Finland.  The awards were very American, with four of the total seven awards being handed out to films from the U.S.A.; the other countries represented were Finland (for Toivoniemi), Poland, and Ireland.  (See the entire list of Short Film Jury Award winners here.)

The Sundance Film Festival will be live streaming its awards ceremony tonight from Park City, Utah.  Be sure to tune in online at 7pm mountain time / 9pm eastern to watch!

Sundance Series here at Her Film Project!
Check out the lineup of women directors and screenwriters in the Shorts Program, and also the day 1 interview with writer-director-animator Song E. Kim, and the day 2 interview with filmmaker Anna Cady

Announcement of nominees for inaugural Canadian Screen Awards: Women have good showing
Includes director Deepa Mehta for Achievement in Direction and producers Lyse LaFontaine, Tamara Deverall and others for Best Motion Picture, and Sarah Polley for Best Feature-Length Documentary
Film Nominees PDF
Documentary Nominees PDF
at Academy.ca

Iqaluit-made film nominated for Canadian Screen Award
("Throat Song" is about a female protagonist played by Ippiksaut Friesen, and was directed and produced by Miranda de Pencier and produced by Stacy Aglok MacDonald)
at the CBC

VIDEO interview with Friesen, de Pencier and Aglok MacDonald

KC Women in Film and Television
VIDEO at Fox4

Hot Docs to Honor Debra Zimmerman of Women Make Movies
at The Hollywood Reporter

Female directors grab helm: More top titles of past year shot by women
at the Columbus Dispatch

Alicia Keys teams with Bento Box to create animated children's television series about the exploration of music
at the Los Angeles Times

Release of Melissa Silverstein's "In Her Voice" book about women filmmakers
at Women and Hollywood

Hey, That's My Cape!: Women and Comic Books in 2013
at IGN