Jury Duty

After much deliberation from the esteemed jury members (like who? Like them) of the Philadelphia Film Fest/CineFest '09 announced their choices for the best of the fest.

Jury Awards

Best Feature Film: Jury Duty

I said:

Set against Algeria's fight for sovereignty, Jury Duty is a quiet psychological thriller. Before we even hear him speak, Gregoire, a mild-mannered pharmacist, attempts to rape and subsequently strangles a beautiful blonde. Her ex-boyfriend, an Algerian émigré, is charged; the public decides his fate before the trial even begins because of the color of his skin. Gregoire is racked with guilt, only made worse when he's placed on the jury of the murder he committed. Isabelle Habiague is fabulous as Gregoire's Lady MacBeth-esque wife, who figures out what her husband has done and will go to any length to keep her family together. Just as much a dissection of race issues in '60s France as a courtroom drama, Jury Duty is one of those movies you can't help but feel afterward.

Best Documentary: Pressure Cooker

Sam Adams said:

Wilma Stephenson, who teaches culinary arts at Frankford High, begins the documentary Pressure Cooker with her take on the Paper Chase speech: "Everything you've heard is true," she tells a class of apprehensive seniors, "only it's worse than that." A tense and sometimes terrifying figure, Stephenson lashes out at students who make careless mistakes, and can be positively scorching with those who fail to show the proper respect to her or her kitchen. "She has good intentions," says Erica, one of three students the movie focuses on. "Just sometimes she has bad people skills."

Read the rest of his cover story on Pressure Cooker here.

Best First Film: Merry Gentleman, directed by Michael Keaton (yeah, that Michael Keaton)

Best Director: Philippe Falardeau, It's Not Me, I Swear!

Brian Rouleau said:

Director Philippe Falardeau coaxes strong performances from each of his young lead actors in this poignant, yet darkly droll coming-of-age tale set in 1960s suburban Montreal. Antoine L’Écuyer plays Léon, a 10-year-old boy with both a rebellious spirit and a morbid curiosity. Witness to the dissolution of his parents’ marriage, Léon responds by alternating between destructive bouts of mischief, several comic attempts at self-destruction, and one larger scheme aimed at finding his mother after her abrupt desertion. His partner-in-crime, Léa, portrayed by Catherine Faucher, is an equally unhappy neighborhood-girl hoping to escape an abusive uncle. As the two conspire together, they discover in one another the empathy and understanding others seem incapable of offering. At turns funny, disturbing, and tender, the film is an earnest look at the problems children face when left to cope with situations they cannot fully comprehend. Well-shot, possessed of superb cinematography, and emotionally resonant, It’s Not Me I Swear! interrogates, with both sly humor and insight, the unhappy adolescents who occupy seemingly idyllic spaces.

Best American Independent: Mississippi Damned

I said:

Tina Mabry's directorial debut follows two generations of a Mississippi family, jumping from 1986 to 1998, as the sins of a father are visited on a son. Centering around three sisters and their children and seen through the eyes of the young, beautiful Kari, as a child (Kylee Russell) and then as a young woman (Tessa Thompson), we watch as the cycle of abuse — physical, sexual and substance — repeats from generation to generation. Unlike similar films that are heavy on message and short on cash, Mississippi Damned is subtle and simple without feeling low-budget. Mabry has some problems fully fleshing out her many characters, although she's blessed with a strong ensemble. Still, her film is an auspicious debut from a director worth watching.

More awards after the jump.

Audience Awards

Best Feature Film: The Nail: The Story of Joey Nardone

Read A.D. Amorosi's story on writer/star Tony Luke:

Joey Nardone, the character Luke plays, is based on Luke's own youth — his desire to be a heavyweight boxer and never getting breaks — interwoven with hard-luck stories of some of the guys he grew up with.

Think of The Nail as The Wrestler without a long blond wig.

Best Documentary: Herb & Dorothy

I said:

Half love story, half art doc, Megumi Sasaki's debut follows the titular Vogels, who built a vast art collection on Herb's income as a U.S. Postal Service worker. Sticking to the adage to buy only what they liked, the Vogels inadvertently became the archivists of the abstract minimalist movement — collecting the likes of Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold and Christo and Jeanne-Claude — before they became art-world heavy-hitters. The film is most successful when it focuses on the elderly couple and their daily lives. To put it plainly, they are adorable — from Herb, who never graduated from high school, to Dorothy, who knew nothing about art until their honeymoon at the National Gallery. The Vogels' love for art equals what they feel for each other.

Best Danger After Dark Feature: 20th Century Boys: Chapter Two

Drew Lazor said:

Part two of Yukihiko Tsutsumi's trilogy adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's epic manga sinks audiences even deeper into a world blinded by faith as theater. This installment features a drastic generational jump, with the thirtysomething protagonists from the first film grayed and tired but no less disdainful of the wrathful cult that's taken Japan — and much of the planet — by the throat. Kanna (Airi Taira), the infant niece of Chapter I's reluctant Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa), is now an anti-establishment teen driven by untapped mental powers and a desire to overthrow the globe-trotting lies perpetuated by the masked messiah known only as "Friend." The source material's rather campy comic connotations manifest themselves here in a series of goofy, wide-eyed characters (well-intentioned cross-dressers named Britney and Mariah!) and action sequences that take the edge off the Boys mythology's more morose implications.

Archie Award: Sita Sings the Blues

Shaun Brady said:

Retelling the Ramayana in animated musical form via the songs of an obscure '20s jazz singer sounds like a cutesy gimmick that would easily wear out its welcome over 80-plus minutes. But Nina Paley's whimsical exploration of the Indian epic is as irresistibly catchy as the songbook standards performed by Annette Hanshaw and mouthed by the character of Sita. Created on Paley's laptop over five years, the film juggles a variety of animation styles, from collages of Indian iconography to the Fleischers-meet-Jay Ward musical numbers. The tale itself is refracted through the half-remembered retelling of three Indian-American narrators and the autobiographical depiction of Paley's own breakup, adding up to a delightfully charming tract about how both mythology and pop culture resonate with our personal lives.