NH Film Festival Draws 10,000 To Portsmouth

(Portsmouth, NH) - The 15th annual New Hampshire Film Festival wrapped-up a successful weekend with a Sunday night awards ceremony.

An estimated 10-thousand attendees took part in the 4-day, star-studded festival.

“It truly was the most amazing combination of filmmakers and festival goers to date,” said Nicole Gregg, Executive Director of the festival. “The appreciation and love from everyone involved was overwhelming and the energy all weekend long was infectious and inescapable. I truly can't wait to start on 2016!”

Sunday night’s Closing Night Ceremony at The Music Hall Historic Theater Main Stage included presentation of the awards of the international film competition.

The following awards were presented:

·      Best Student Film — Basilisk directed by Nikolai Hamel

·      Best Short Comedy – In the Clouds Directed by Marcelo Mitnik

·      Best Short Drama - Delia directed by Thomas Scott Stanton

·      Best Short Documentary – Body Team 12 directed by David Darg

·      Best Animation – Hands of Flame directed by Steven Markowitz (in attendance)

·      Audience Choice Documentary — Harry and Snowman Directed by Ron Davis

·      Audience Choice Feature – Oliver’s Deal directed by Barney Elliott (in attendance)

·      Best Documentary – Cartel Land directed by Matthew Heineman

·      Best Feature – The Witch directed by Roberts Eggers

·      Documentary Grand Jury Award: Frame by Frame directed by Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli

·      Narrative Grand Jury Award: Chicken directed by Joe Stephenson (in attendance, with lead actor Scott Chambers)

The Narrative Grand Jury was: Justin DiPietro from IFC Films, Rebecca Sosa from A24 Productions and actor John Michael Higgins. Higgins presented the award to Chicken director Joe Stephenson and lead actor Scott Chambers. “It was a very special experience for me to watch,” Higgins said while presenting the award. “This film had an incredibly delicate tone, sustained over each event, which is very hard to do.”

The Witch director Robert Eggers was in attendance for Saturday night’s screening of the film, and participated in a Q&A with the packed crowd at The Music Hall. Crowds were lined up around the block to get a seat to the screening, which was the last screening before its theatrical release in February 2016.

The Documentary Grand Jury included IndieFilms’ Molly Thompson, Academy Award-winning director Ross Kaufmann and Oscilloscope Laboratories’ Kate McEdwards.

Thompson released the following statement along with their selection of Frame by Frame: “We thoroughly enjoyed watching all the films – they were each excellent in their own ways and of course it’s a cliché but very true that it was hard to choose a winner. All the films took us into fascinating worlds we didn’t know before which is the great gift of from the documentary filmmaker to his or her audience. All of these were beautifully made, emotional stories. At the end of the day, we felt Frame by Frame was the best of the best. Thank you for the privilege of judging your work. Sorry to not be there to congratulate you in person. We look forward to connecting in the future. Congratulations!”

Saturday afternoon’s Comedy Panel featured John Michael Higgins, television host Tom Bergeron, actor/comedian Jimmy Dunn and comedian Juston McKinney. The panel was packed at standing room only at Discover Portsmouth Center, the festival headquarters and panel venue. Local radio host Greg Kretschmar moderated the panel, which lasted an hour and a half and was filled with laughter.

Sunday afternoon, the festival hosted a Meet & Greet with David Dastmalchian, Screenplay Competition Judge, and Kenny Stevenson, this year’s winner for his screenplay How to Be a Canadian, at Block Six Restaurant at 3S Artspace. Stevenson, whose film Missed Connections was in the New Hampshire Film Festival’s 2012 program, read from his winning screenplay and answered some questions. Dastmalchian also read from his next screenplay and both answered questions from the crowd.

The NHFF Closing Ceremony also featured the screening of 4 short films that were scripted and shot over the course of the festival weekend by the Young Filmmakers Workshop, led by John Herman. The workshop, which had 17 high-school-aged participants this year, was the biggest participation ever for this program, which Herman has been running for 13 years.

The festival ended with a screening of Charlie Kaufmann’s Anomalisa.

For more information and highlights, visit nhfilmfestival.com.