Cambria Film Festival announces 2023 winners

More than a half dozen films were recognized with awards from a panel of judges for the 2023 Cambria Film Festival. The awards night February 12 capped five days involving over 60 competition films, filmmaker talks, world premieres, special programming and gala events.

The Nancy Green Founder’s Award for the film that best exemplified the festival’s goal of exploring romance and the complexities of love went to Look Who’s There (Italy). This feature-length film directed by Riccardo Camilli explores the dynamics of love, death and moving forward.

Volunteers of the Cambria Scarecrow Festival pose with Robin Smith, the director of “Something to Crow About.” Robin Smith’s documentary about the Cambria Scarecrow Festival had its world premiere on Saturday, February 11, at the Cambria Film Festival.

The judging panel made its official selections from over 400 feature and short films submitted from around the world. 

• Best Feature Film to Hard Shell, Soft Shell (France), directed by Emma Benestan. 
• Best Short Film to The Fool’s Mate (United Kingdom), directed by Cian Llewellyn. 
• Best Animated Film went to A Fleeting Moment, (United States), directed by Allyanna Demafeliz. 
• Best Long-Form Short (an award for short films more than 20 minutes in length) went to Shams (Belgium), directed by Pauline Beugnies. 
• Best Documentary award went to Blue Dots (Italy), directed by Lorenzo Squarcia.

Two additional awards were based on audience balloting. 

• The Audience Award for Favorite Short was given to Róise & Frank (Ireland) directed by Rachael and Peter Murphy. The Audience Award for Favorite Feature, in its second win of the night, was received by Blue Dots (Italy), directed by Lorenzo Squarcia.

In addition, the Director’s Award for Artistic Achievement chosen by the organizing directors of the Festival was presented to Sweet Disaster (Germany), directed by Laura Lehmus.

Festival Director Dennis Frahmann presented the 2023 Cambria Heart Award to the film “Our (Almost Completely True) Story.”  Mariette Hartley and Jerry Sroka, stars of the film, accepted the award and participated in a question and answer session after the film’s screening.

At a special screening on Friday evening, the Cambria Heart Award, given to acknowledge a unique or special exploration of the festival theme of love, was given to director Don Scardino for Our (Almost Completely True) Story (United States). The award was accepted in person by the film’s stars Mariette Hartley and Jerry Sroka—whose own real-life, late-in-life romance was the movie’s inspiration.

Another highlight of the Festival was the Saturday evening, February 11, packed-house world premiere of “Something to Crow About.” This documentary from Robin Smith was the behind-the-scene story of what it takes to produce the Cambria Scarecrow Festival each October.

Rounding out the awards announcement, the Cambria Film Festival announced the winner of its annual Film Grant for Emerging Filmmakers. This year, the grant was awarded to Aiden Glikman, a junior at Chapman University in Orange, California.

The short films in the Festival competition remain available for streaming in the Festival’s virtual program through the end of Sunday, February 19. Tickets and additional details can be found at www.cambriafilmfestival.com.

The Cambria Film Festival is an official activity of the Cambria Center for the Arts, a non-profit dedicated to local arts. This year’s festival sponsors were James and Elaine Levin Anderson, Ami Belli (in memory of Nancy Green), William and Diane Franciscovich, and many other local businesses and individuals. The Festival will return in 2024 the weekend of February 7-11

For more information about the Festival, visit www.CambriaFilmFestival.com.