Past Winner Endows New Award Honoring Best Documentary
The Alexandria Film Festival kicks off its 12th year with its annual Call for Entries. Filmmakers from anywhere in the world can enter short and feature-length films of any genre on two digital platforms: Filmfreeway.com and Withoutabox.com.
Festival judges will evaluate 2-300 films before selecting the best to bring to the city, for the three-day event November 9-11. The program will ultimately feature more than 50 free and ticketed films—including many premieres—to delight, entertain, and inform area film enthusiasts. AMC Hoffman 22 Theater and Beatley Central Library will again serve as venues for the festival.
Traditionally, the festival offers three awards: Best of Fest, with a cash prize of $300, Grand Jury Award, with a prize of $200 and Audience Award, with a prize of $100. For the first time, the festival will offer a $250 prize for best documentary. Alexandria producer and entrepreneur Joe Cantwell, who is also a past AFF award winner for his film “Ride The Divide,” has endowed the “Joe Cantwell Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking.”
“Alexandria has long been home to people whose deeds and lives are the subject of fascinating true stories,” Cantwell said. “It is only fitting for the Alexandria Film Festival to curate the best documentary features from around the world for an audience that loves living history. I am proud to support the festival and the community by underwriting this new non-fiction film award program.”
“It means so much to us that an alumnus of the festival would pay it forward by sponsoring this new award,” said festival chair Margaret Wohler. “We have featured some fantastic documentaries at the festival and are excited to be able to offer this great incentive to talented documentarians.”
