• Awards •
GRAND PRIZE
SCREENING AT 2007 MILWAUKEE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
The top movie, amongst all the entries in all categories, will be screened at the Milwaukee International Film Festival. The winning student will receive a Festival Pass and will be treated by MIFF’s Hospitality Team as a filmmaker of the festival.
DINNER WITH A PRO: JEFF FITZSIMMONS
Jeff is an award-winning Milwaukee filmmmaker who attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Evergreen College in Washington State, studying photography and film. He won the Grand Prize in the 5th Annual Milwaukee Short Film Festival with his film Gaucer. Nowheresville, on which Jeff was an Assistant Director, won the Audience Choice Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival and was purchased by Showtime. Last year, he directed the first winner of the Milwaukee International Film Festival (MIFF) Student Screenwriting Competition, Vinnie Balistreri’s She Never Screams.
PRODUCTION SERVICES PACKAGE FROM KURT DENISSEN PRODUCTIONS, INC.
- Includes use of cameras, lighting, and audio (Value $600)
PLUS…
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: TATE BUNKER
Tate has won numerous awards in the fields of filmmaking and television, including “Best Filmmaker” at 2005′s Milwaukee International Film Festival for his feature film Yellow Light and an “Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in a Children’s Series” as Producer. A director known for his creativity on the set and his mastery behind the lens, Tate’s improvisational creative techniques, lush images and fluid editing have won him acclaim for both his experimental shorts, feature and commercial work. Tate currently balances freelancing as a director and director of photography while continuing work on his catalogue of art films. He has exhibited internationally in festivals and museums and has been a recipient of various art and filmmaking grants.
SCRIPT CONSULTATION (Value $500)
PLUS…
BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: BRAD LICHTENSTEIN
Brad has been working in documentary production since 1992, as a producer on many PBS films. With Lumiere Productions, he produced and directed Andres Lives, a portrait of the “Jewish Schindler”; Safe, about three women who seek refuge from domestic violence; and Caught in the Crossfire, chronicling the lives of three Arab New Yorkers in the wake of 9/11. His Ghosts of Attica, about the infamous 1971 prison uprising and aftermath, won him the Dupont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Journalism. He also teaches in the film department of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where he founded and directs docUWM, a program that produces student-faculty collaborative documentary projects, presents documentary to the community and will soon offer an academic track of study in documentary.+
PLUS…
BEST ANIMATION AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: MEREDITH ROOT
Meredith’s animated films have been shown nationally both in festivals—the Slamdance Festival and Women in the Director’s Chair—and in curated shows at such venues as The Knitting Factory in New York City and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, California. A print of her film Even Me has toured with The Sprocket Ensemble, a San Francisco-based group of musicians who perform live musical accompaniment to contemporary animation. She is currently designing an animation track within the Film Department devoted to new and innovative approaches to animation.
PLUS…
BEST EXPERIMENTAL AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: MARK G.E.
Mark is a Milwaukee multi-media artist. At twelve years old, he got his first camera and has been making movies ever since. Tending to work in the short film genre, Mark has always been intrigued by tales of irony. His style is at times romanticized German expressionism & American noir, usually coming from a conceptual art approach. To date Mark has made over 300 movies. Visually, Mark is inspired by films from the twenties and early thirties such as Vampyre, Pandora’s Box and Battleship Potemkin. His writing interests have always been along the lines of Poe, Gorey, Grimm, Kafka and Serling. Though, much of his taste may be on the dark side, he has always maintained a love of the absurdly witty. His interest in the human condition led him to obtaining a Ph.D. in Psychology.
PLUS…
BEST MUSIC VIDEO AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: ALISON ROSTANKOWSKI
Alison teaches in UW-Milwaukee’s Department of Journalism & Mass Communications, specializing in documentary production and theory, media history, television production, and communicating environmental health messages to ethnic populations. She is the co-founder and co-director of docUWM, a new initiative providing services and production for documentary projects. Her films have appeared on national public television. They include The Cost of Freedom: Civil Liberties, Security and the USA PATRIOT Act (2004), In A Just World: Contraception, Abortion and World Religions (2003), and the upcoming Prayer in America (expected PBS release date, September 2007).
PLUS…
BEST COMMERCIAL/PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: CARL BOGNER
Carl prefers watching movies to making them. Some of his favorites include Bruce Baillie’s All My Life (1966), Yoko Ono’s Fly (1970), and Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (1999). He worked for nearly a decade as a bookseller and, truth be told, prefers reading to everything. Some day he will be a writer. He pens, for instance, “clever” bios. He has worked as a film curator for some time, crafting schedules for, among others, the UW-Milwaukee Film Department Screenings, UWM’s Union Theatre, Asian Media Access in Minneapolis, Woodland Pattern’s Experimental Film/Video Series, and, for the last five years, Milwaukee’s only LGBT Film/Video Festival.
PLUS…
AUDIENCE FAVORITE AWARD
DINNER WITH A PRO: MARK METCALF
Mark is an actor in both television and film who currently lives in Milwaukee. He is well known for his roles in National Lampoon’s Animal House and the several TV series, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off Angel, and Seinfeld. Currently, he is working with the 2007 Milwaukee International Film Festival (MIFF) Student Screenwriting Competition. Last year, he produced the first winner of the competition, Vinnie Balisteri’s She Never Screams, which was directed by Jeff Fitzsimmons and screened at MIFF in 2006.
PLUS…
BEYOND WISCONSIN AWARD
CASH PRIZE
- This is our first year offering this prize to out-of-state entries, and we considered TWO of the movies on such equal footing that we must split the prize into TWO cash prizes of $250 each.
PLUS…
ALL PARTICIPANTS
- 3-month membership to Bucketworks
- Written commentary from the jurying sessions, plus a more detailed critique upon request
Disclaimer: Award categories may be subject to further change, determined according to our entries. Awards may differ slightly, as well, by the time the festival occurs.
