War Witch and Una Noche Take Top Tribeca Film Festival Prizes

Kim Nguyen's War Witch cast a spell at the Tribeca Film Festival Thursday evening, winning the event's $25K Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, while Una Noche's Lucy Mulloy won $50K and the fest's Best New Narrative Director prize as well as other nods at a ceremony in Lower Manhattan. Also taking home prizes at the ceremony were The World Before Her by Canadian Nisha Pahuja, which took Best Documentary Feature while Dutch director Jeroen van Velzen's won Best New Documentary Director for Wavumba.

“It’s been so gratifying to see the audiences react so positively to the films, and our juries have been equally passionate. I celebrate these immensely talented filmmakers,” commented Nancy Schafer, TFF Executive Director in a statement. “We salute the courage of the jury to award films that not only tell stories about real issues in the world, but are beautifully constructed and crafted,” said Frederic Boyer, TFF Artistic Director. "The amazing first-time performances by young actors are a tribute to the creativity of the films and filmmakers."
 
Screenings of all winning films will take place throughout the final day of the festival, Sunday, April 29.

The List of 2012 Tribeca Film Festival winners:

The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – War Witch, directed by Kim Nguyen (Canada)

Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film – Dariel Arrechada and Javier Nuñez Florian as Raul and Elio in Una Noche, directed by Lucy Mulloy (UK, Cuba, USA)

Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Rachel Mwanza as Komona in War Witch, directed by Kim Nguyen (Canada)

Best Cinematography in a Narrative Feature Film – Cinematography by Trevor Forrest and Shlomo Godder, for Una Noche, directed by Lucy Mulloy  (UK, Cuba, USA)

Special Jury Mention – Alex Catalan for Unit 7

Best Screenplay for a Narrative Feature Film – All In (La Suerte en Tus Manos), written by Daniel Burman and Sergio Dubcovsky and directed by Daniel Burman (Argentina)

Best New Narrative Director – Lucy Mulloy, director of Una Noche (UK, Cuba, USA)

Special Jury Mention – P. Benoit, director of Stones in the Sun; and Sharon Bar-Ziv, director of Room 514

Best Documentary Feature – The World Before Her, directed by Nisha Pahuja (Canada)

Special Jury Mention – The Revisionaries, directed by Scott Thurman

Best Editing in a Documentary Feature – The Flat (Hadira)

Best New Documentary Director – Jeroen van Velzen for Wavumba  (Netherlands)

Special Jury Mention – Christian Bonke and Andreas Koefoed, directors of Ballroom Dancer

Best Narrative Short – Asad, directed by Bryan Buckley (USA)

Special Jury Mention – Ritesh Batra, writer and director of Café Regular Cairo

Best Documentary Short – Paraíso, directed by Nadav Kurtz (USA)

Special Jury Mention – David Darg and Bryn Mooser, directors of Baseball in the Time of Cholera

Special Jury Mention –Tati Barrantes and Andinh Ha, writers and directors of Adirake

Tribeca (Online) Film Festival Best Feature Film: On The Mat, directed and written by Fredric Golding (USA)

Tribeca (Online) Film Festival Best Short Film: CatCam, directed by Seth Keal (USA)

Read more from Tribeca here.