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Ad Hoc Docs Competition

Audience at the CIFF love documentaries.

Over the past several years, almost half of the feature films we have presented have been documentaries, which have won the Roxanne T. Mueller Award six of the past seven years. Thanks to Tom & Anita Cook and Anne E. Bloomberg, we’re excited to once again present this competition featuring topics, subjects, and stories that go beyond the descriptions of our other competitions.

Based on audience vote, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Anne E. BloombergTom and Anita Cook

American Independents Competition

Thanks to Mike & Nicki Cancelliere, we're thrilled to once again present this competition featuring films with big dreams and small budgets, and representing the finest in contemporary American cinema.

Based on audience vote, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Mike and Nicki Cancelliere

Audience Choice Award for Best Short

Sponsored by Char and Chuck Fowler

Best After Hours Short

Sponsored by Friends of Patrick McFadden

Best Animated Short

Sponsored by MP Star Financial

This award winner will quality for consideration in the Shorts Films Animation category of the annual Academy Awards.

Best Black Cinema Short

Sponsored by Hingetown Browns Backers

Best Comedy Short

Endowed by David K. Ream

Best Documentary Short

Sponsored by Jules and Fran Belkin

This award winner will quality for consideration in the Shorts Films Documentary category of the annual Academy Awards.

Best Family Short

Sponsored by University School

Best Latinx Short

Sponsored by La Familia Watilo Blake

Best LGBTQ+ Short

Sponsored by Jan and Harold Babbit

Best Live Action Short

Sponsored by Anne E. Bloomberg and Alan Gordon Lipson & Judy Harris

This award winner will quality for consideration in the Shorts Films Live-Action category of the annual Academy Awards.

Best Ohio Short

Sponsored by Bill and Teri Koeth

Best Student Short

Sponsored by MP Star Financial

Best Women's Short

Sponsored by Jinny and John Johnson

FilmSlam Student Choice Award for Best Feature

sponsored by Overdrive

FilmSlam Student Choice Award for Best Short

Sponsored by Overdrive

George Gund III Memorial Central and Eastern European Competition

Thirty-one years ago at the 14th CIFF, we launched a special focus on films from Central and Eastern Europe, the native lands of many Clevelanders.

This year the CIFF is proud to present its 19th Central and Eastern European Competition. And, for the ninth year, we are deeply honored to showcase this competition in loving memory of George Gund III with the support of an endowment from The George Gund Foundation.

As determined by our jury, the winnner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $10,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Jurors:

Barbara Twist – Barbara Twist is a producer and exhibition consultant based in Los Angeles, where she also works as a freelance post supervisor. In the exhibition field, she consults for Vidiots, Film Festival Alliance, and Europa International, among others. Most recently she produced "Bye Bye Body," which was nominated for Vimeo Pick of the Year 2020, played many festivals including Aspen ShortsFest, and currently has over 220K views on Vimeo. She was listed on Celluloid Junkie's Top 50 Women in Global Cinema in 2017 and featured in BoxOffice's "Women in Exhibition and Distribution" October 2015. Barbara is on the board of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and Cinema Lamont. She is a member of Detroit-based Final Girls (a women's filmmaking collective) and a recipient of a 2016 Knight Foundation grant. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Producing from Columbia University.

Tom Hall – Tom Hall is the Executive Director of Montclair Film in Montclair, NJ. Previously, Tom held the positions of Director, Artistic Director, and Director of Programming at the Sarasota Film Festival (2005-2014) and Programming Director at newportFILM in Newport, RI (2009-2011). In addition, Tom was Programmer for The Nantucket Film Festival in Nantucket, MA (2002-2005) as well as a former Director of New Media for Bravo/The Independent Film Channel (1997-2000). In January of 2010, Tom was named one of Springboard Media's 20 under 40 in Film. Tom has directed short films for Bob Mould's Carnival of Light and Sound tour and was an inaugural member of the indieWIRE blogging community with his blog The Back Row Manifesto. A graduate of the University of Michigan ('94), Tom resides in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and two sons.

TT Stern-Enzi – Having spent 20 years as a freelance writer and film critic in the Greater Cincinnati region (covering the film industry and film festivals with the alt-weekly Cincinnati CityBeat and television affiliate Fox19, while earning distinction as an accredited critic on Rotten Tomatoes and membership in the Critics Choice Association), tt stern-enzi began curating film programs at the Mini Microcinema and other regional venues. He has also spent time serving on the advisory board for the University of Cincinnati Center for Film & Media Studies and developing an educational curriculum for his WatchWriteNow initiative. These efforts have paved the way for tt to step into the role of lead programmer/curator for the rebranded Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival during its first two years before settling into the position of Artistic Director for the 2021 edition.

Global Health Competition

The CIFF has always recognized the power of film to change people’s viewpoints about the world. This competition includes films that delve into human health-related issues (both mental and physical) and films about the health of the environment.

The selections in this competition will encourage viewers to question the true definition of health as it relates to individuals and the planet.

This year the CIFF is proud to present our eighth Global Health Competition, thanks to the generous support of Mark Smith & Janet Rosel Smith.

Based on audience vote, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Mark Smith & Janet Rosel Smith

Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Competition

In 2005 The George Gund Foundation granted the CIFF with an endowment to create the Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Competition as a tribute to Greg Gund. Greg's friends and family described him as "intensely creative and talented, and wholly without pretension."

For five years Greg lived in Playa Negro near Tamarindo, Costa Rica where he immersed himself by becoming part of the local community. As much as he deeply loved his home there, Greg was also an extensive world traveler with an adventurous spirit and an insatiable curiosity about different cultures and people. He lived by this Mahatma Gandhi quote inscribed in his passport: "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Greg died at the age of 32 in a small plane crash off the Pacific Coast in 2005.

Standing Up started as a sidebar to focus on films with the mission to change the world and grew into a celebration of activism and the fight for social justice. Our Standing Up Competition includes "films with a conscience." Many of these films highlight personal stories featuring individuals who set out to teach lessons on how to live a better life. One of the aspects all these films share is the impact they make on viewers long after the credits roll. Through the films, Standing Up honors Greg Gund - as well as others with a different view of the world - and the continual fight to make it better.

Based on audience vote, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $7,500 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Films sponsored by:

International Narrative Competition

CIFF is a great way for Clevelanders to experience the different cultures, languages, and customs of the entire world.

We are recognized for our well-rounded international program, and we’re happy to showcase films from around the globe in the fourth year of this competition, thanks to Tom Piraino & Barbara McWilliams.

Based on audience vote, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Tom Piraino & Barbara McWilliams

Local Heroes Competition

Local Heroes is our annual celebration of films made about Ohio, in Ohio, or by Ohioans.

Thanks to Lauren Rich Fine & Gries Financial Partners, we are honored to once again support these films and filmmakers, hoping to empower the already booming independent film community of Cleveland and Ohio alike.

Based on audience vote, this winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Lauren Rich Fine

Nesnadny + Schwartz Portrait Documentary Competition

The Nesnadny + Schwartz Portrait Documentary Competition and the "May the Schwartz Be with You" Director's Award is dedicated to the life and work of our longtime board member and friend, Mark Schwartz (1956–2014).

For 17 years, N+S has sponsored the CIFF Documentary Competition. Five years ago, we focused more exclusively on portrait documentaries. Like Mark himself, the subjects in these documentaries are determined, dedicated, and daring. The same qualities define the best of what art can achieve in all mediums, including graphic design.

The films are artistic and passionate, telling stories with insight, power, and revelation. Never a man to back down from controversy, this genre of filmmaking exemplifies the way Mark led his life and ran his design firm. Since his death, the firm has continued to honor his vision. Their work is big and bold, grounded in logic, and informed by research.

Portrait documentaries in competition that are screening in the Festival will be viewed by our panel of jurors throughout the week.

As determined by our jury, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $10,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Jurors:

Abby Sun – Abby Sun is an artist, film programmer, and researcher at the MIT Open Documentary Lab. Through her work, Abby considers the power dynamics in the documentary form's inherent smudging of reality, with a particular interest in the media infrastructures and cultural artifacts of moving image exhibition. Abby has bylines in Film Comment, Filmmaker Magazine, Film Quarterly, Hyperallergic, and other publications. She has served on juries for Palm Springs, New Orleans, CAAMfest, and DOC NYC, as well as nominating committees for the Gotham Awards, Cinema Eye, and IDA Documentary Awards. Her latest short film, "Cuba Scalds His Hand" (co-directed with Daniel Garber), premiered at the Maryland Film Festival in 2019. Abby is the Curator of the DocYard and co-curated My Sight is Lined with Visions: 1990s Asian American Film & Video with Keisha Knight. She previously was senior editor of Nat. Brut and programmer for True/False Film Fest and Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.

Chloe Walters-Wallace – Chloe Walters-Wallace manages Firelight Media's artist programs, including the Firelight Documentary Lab and the Groundwork Regional Lab—a new initiative that expands the pipeline of early career independent diverse makers from the South, Midwest, and U.S. Territories. Currently, in collaboration with Reel South and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) she's helming Firelight's latest digital shorts series, Hindsight. Chloe was Program Director of the New Orleans Film Society's Emerging Voices Mentorship Program, which establishes meaningful connections between industry leaders and Louisiana-based filmmakers of color. In 2018 she designed and launched the Southern Producers Lab, a regional program for emerging producers from across the American South. Chloe is a 2021 Rockwood Leadership Institute Fellow, a 2007 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, and an Ortique Institute Participant. She lives between New York City and New Orleans and is on the board of Third Horizon Media.

Greta Hagen-Richardson – Greta Hagen-Richardson is a programmer and producer with almost a decade of experience in the industry. As a programmer, she strives to elevate the contributions of storytellers working outside the traditional industry, primarily from the American South. Currently, Greta is the Director of Programming at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and Lead Features Programmer at the New Orleans Film Festival. Over the years she has contributed to many festival organizations, including the Oxford Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the True/False Film Fest. In 2020 she participated in Film Independent's Project Involve as a Creative Executive Fellow. While in Project Involve, she was the CE on two shorts, "Hollow" and "Blackout," both developed and completed during the pandemic. Additionally, one of her teams developed and completed a third narrative short film, "Noche del Inferno." She is currently producing the short, "Pearl & Henry," and the feature, "Long Eye," with director Gibrey Allen.

New Direction Competition

At the 39th CIFF we premiered our focus on debut directors whose innovative films transform the traditional notions of cinematic storytelling.

Thanks to the support of Jules and Fran Belkin, we are proud to present our sixth New Direction Competition. Screening within this competition are films created by emerging filmmakers who we believe will define the future of filmmaking. Films in competition that are screening in the Festival will be viewed by our panel of jurors throughout the week.

As determined by our jury, the winner of this competition will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $10,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Jules and Fran Belkin

Jurors:

Joe Yanick – Joe Yanick is the co-founder of Yellow Veil Pictures, a worldwide sales company focusing on boundary pushing genre/art house cinema. Since launching the company with Hugues Barbier and Justin Timms in 2017, Yellow Veil has acquired an array of titles from burgeoning auteurs such as Tilman Singer and A.T. White to veteran directors like Larry Fessenden and George A. Romero.

Katie McCullough – Katie McCullough graduated from Bournemouth Media School with a degree in Scriptwriting for Film & TV. For 16 years and counting she has provided strategy and submissions support to filmmakers worldwide, resulting in the creation of the consultancy brand Festival Formula in 2014. As an active member of the Short Film Conference and the Film Festival Alliance, Katie is also a key spokesperson on festival issues with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily regarding suspect and fraudulent film festivals. She co-created the Filmmaker Lounge in partnership with Film Festival Alliance—an online space for programmers and filmmakers to discuss their roles.

Setu Raval – Setu Raval has been part of the Film Independent Spirit Awards staff since 2012. As Associate Director of Nominations, she oversees the nominations process and manages the six nominating committees for the Spirit Awards, as well as the selections process for Spirit Awards Filmmaker Grants. In her position, Setu also has dedicated efforts towards ensuring the nominating committees and films in consideration are representative of Film Independent's commitment to diversity and inclusion. She also managed all grants tied to Film Independent's Artist Development Labs, Fast Track, and Project Involve. Prior to her current role, she was the Spirit Awards Nominee Liaison. Setu has also worked at the Sundance Institute, Sundance Film Festival, LA Film Festival, and Creative Artists Agency. In addition, Setu was the Festival Producer for the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles for three years. She received her B.F.A. in Film Producing from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Programmers' Choice Award - In Celebration of the life of Toni Oliverio

Sponsored by The Sloop Family

In memory of long-time CIFF shorts programmer, Toni Oliverio.

ReelWomenDirect Award for Excellence in Directing by a Woman

We are thrilled to once again celebrate female filmmakers at the CIFF, thanks to Deborah Bachman Ratner.

In an industry historically dominated by men, we are honored to showcase these women–who make up 49% of our feature filmmakers–and the empowered female perspectives they provide within their films.

Based on audience vote, the winning director of this award will be announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony and receive a $10,000 cash prize.

Competition Presented by:

Deborah Bachman Ratner

Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award

Roxanne T. Mueller served as the film critic at The Plain Dealer from 1983 until 1988 when she lost a six-month battle with cancer at the age of 36. Mueller was a strong supporter of the Festival and, through her writing, helped to raise the general level of film appreciation in Cleveland. She was an exceptionally engaging writer who managed to weave personal insights into her film reviews, whether she was covering popular Hollywood fare or sophisticated foreign cinema. In its 12th year, the CIFF established the Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award for Best Film to help bring this important Festival friend back into focus a bit each year. Festival patrons rate each film they see and the most popular film is announced at our Closing Awards Ceremony. The Callahan Foundation, started in 1968 by Cleveland nuclear engineer, inventor, and businessman Joe Callahan, joins us in celebrating the 29th year of this renowned award with a $10,000 cash prize to the winner.

The Clover and Maggie Award

Sponsored by Barbara Hawley and David Goodman

The Ophelia Award

Sponsored by Jim Brumbaugh & Carolyn Berg

The Sammy and Jules Award for the Short Film with the Biggest Heart

Sponsored by Marcie Goodman

The Spalding and Jackson Award

Sponsored by Marcie Goodman and John C. Williams

The Tom and Ginny Knoll Family Award

Sponsored by Tom and Ginny Knoll and The Knoll Family Fund Promoting Civility and Acts of Kindness of Akron Community Foundation