Foyle Film Festival Reveals Stella Artois Film Awards Winners

As the 19th Seagate Foyle Film Festival concluded on Sunday 19 November, the winners of the Festival’s Stella Artois Film Awards stepped into the spotlight.
The awards presentation ceremony is an annual feature of Seagate Foyle Film Festival, which rounds off the ten days of premiere screenings, special events, an educational programme, live music, and outreach workshops.
Held in the City’s Nerve Centre, it was attended by International and Irish filmmakers, jury members, audiences and sponsors, in support of this fitting climax of an event that is now firmly established as one of Europe’s leading International Film Festivals.
Congratulating the winners and the Festival team on another creative year, Kathryn Darby, Stella Artois, said; “The Stella Artois Film Awards at Foyle aim to encourage independent artists, inspire risk-taking and encourage diversity in the arts. Going by the range and scope of entries the Festival received this year, I am happy to say the team has achieved that once again. Well done to Award Winners and we wish you the best of luck in future festivals, including Vanessa Gildea, Sophie Schoukens and Stefan Muller, who now automatically qualify to be considered for nomination for an Academy Award having won our Short Film and Animation categories.”
The 19th Seagate Foyle Film Festival Stella Artois Film Awards winners were:

• Stella Artois Best Irish short – 'The White Dress' directed by Vanessa Gildea.
• Stella Artois Best International short – 'Alice or Life in Black and White,' directed by Sophie Schoukens (Belgium).
• Stella Artois Best Animation – 'Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen and Mr. Horlocker,' written, directed and animated by Stefan Muller (Germany).
• Stella Artois Best Documentary – 'The Real Dirt on Farmer John,' directed by Taggart Siegel (USA).
• Stella Artois Best Feature Film – 'London to Brighton,' directed by Paul Andrew Williams (UK).

The winning filmmakers were each presented with a specially commissioned Stella Artois trophy.
"As the world's leading manufacturer of hard disc drives, we are happy to support emerging film makers through this internationally acclaimed Film Festival," said title sponsor Seagate's William O'Kane, senior research and development director at the company's Limavady facility. "We are always keen to work with local film makers and to advise them on a range of storage solutions which can help them enhance how they create, edit and store their films."
Shauna Kelpie, Director of the 19th Seagate Foyle Film Festival said: “Once again we’ve had an amazing Festival. Ten days devoted to screening a diverse and exciting range of films, mixed with a great range of industry seminars. We thank all our audiences who attended at least one event and we look forward to the 20th Foyle Film Festival.”
(SP)