Announcing CAAMFest37 Filmmaker Awards

"Yellow Rose," "Go Back to China," "Our Time Machine," "When We Walk" -- see who else won at CAAMFest37!

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Winners:

NARRATIVE AUDIENCE AWARD: HAPPY CLEANERS |Dirs. Julian Kim and Peter S. Lee

DOCUMENTARY AUDIENCE AWARD: FINDING THE VIRGO |Dir. Barre Fong

COMCAST NARRATIVE AWARD

Winner:

YELLOW ROSE | Dir. Diane Paragas

Honorary Mention:

GO BACK TO CHINA | Dir. Emily Ting

DOCUMENTARY AWARD (TIE)

Winners:

OUR TIME MACHINE | Dirs. S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun

WHEN WE WALK | Jason DaSilva

InspirASIAN STUDENT FILM AWARD

Winners:

SHARE | Dirs. Barna Szasz and Ellie Wen

MOONWALK WITH ME | Dir. So Young Shelly Ho

LONI DING AWARD

Winner:

IN THIS FAMILY | Dir. Drama del Rosario

SF FILM CRITICS AWARD

Winner:

LAST SUNRISE | Dirs. Wen Ren

READY, SET, PITCH!

Winner:

LIGHT OF THE SETTING SUN | Dir. Vicky Du

Jury Statement: “We all connected on an emotional level to this deeply personal story with its unique approach to a nontraditional narrative and a beautiful visual sample. This project has an immense opportunity to create positive social impact.”

ABOUT CAAMFest37 AWARDS

COMCAST NARRATIVE COMPETITION
The Comcast Narrative Competition Award highlights the diversity and ingenuity of modern cinema and recognizes excellence in narrative filmmaking.

NARRATIVE JURY MEMBERS:

Inkoo Kang, Journalist and Film Critic
Karim Ahmad, Director of Outreach & Inclusion, Sundance
Serge Bakalian, Executive Director of Arab Film and Media Institute

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
The Documentary Competition showcases a dynamic selection of films that fearlessly capture the challenging reality and surprising beauty inherent in the human experience.

DOCUMENTARY JURY MEMBERS:

David Liu, Story Consultant
Mridu Chandra, Director IF/Then Shorts, Tribeca Film Institute

Soumyaa Kapil Behrens, Director, The Documentary Film Institute, San Francisco State University

InspirASIAN STUDENT FILM AWARD
Recognizing promising voices in Asian and Asian American media, the InspirASIAN Student Film Award is presented to college students who exemplify the voice of a new generation.

Co-sponsored by InspirAsian, a nonprofit organization focused on the representation of Asian Pacific Islanders employed by AT&T Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries.

LONI DING AWARD
The Loni Ding Award for Social Justice Documentary recognizes the film and filmmaker that most reflect the passions of late TV producer Loni Ding. Ding devoted her life to advocacy and played a key role in the founding of several public media organizations, including CAAM.

SF FILM CRITICS AWARD
In partnership with the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, we proudly celebrate cinematic achievements in global cinema. Award winners are selected by members of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, an organization of Bay Area film critics, reviewers, writers, authors and editors.

READY, SET, PITCH!

CAAM Fellows presented projects to a panel to compete for a $10,000 award.  

READY, SET, PITCH! JURY MEMBERS:

Karim Ahmad is the Director of Outreach & Inclusion at the Sundance Institute, where he oversees emerging artist outreach initiatives and cross-discipline creative / professional development activations and partnerships. He also leads inclusion strategy across the organization, and advocacy for marginalized artists in the field. Previously, he was Senior Strategist for ITVS, where he oversaw numerous film funds and headed digital content production and creative development for episodic and immersive media. He was the Creator and Senior Producer of Indie Lens Storycast, an Independent Lens branded YouTube channel on PBS’ Digital Studios MCN, and the Creator and Showrunner of the iconic sci-fi series, FUTURESTATES. Karim is also an independent cross-platform writer and producer and can be found on Twitter as @thatkarimahmad

Amy Hobby has 20 years of experience as an award-winning feature and documentary film producer.  Her work spans feature-length dramas starring A-list Hollywood stars to documentaries, international features, television pilots and webisodes. Hobby personifies the fully diverse producer, with deep experience across a wide range of budgets and in various types of producing roles, and has a well-earned reputation for producing edgy, compelling features. She mentors emerging filmmakers worldwide and actively supports women directors through various initiatives launched through Tangerine Entertainment, which she co-founded. Her producing projects have included SECRETARY, HAMLET (with Ethan Hawke), LOVE, MARILYN and WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award. She joined TFI as Vice President, Artist Programs in 2015.

Michael Kinomoto is a Supervising Producer for ITVS where he oversees documentary films in production. Some recent highlights include the Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning MINDING THE GAP, the Emmy-winning Best of Enemies, the Peabody Award-winning THE JUDGE, and the Full Frame Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner, QUEST, as well as many other acclaimed titles. Earlier, he was the Senior Producer of Interactive for ITVS, producing the PBS series website for Independent Lens and the content portal for the web-exclusive FUTURESTATES series. Previously, he was a promo producer and editor for Link TV and also worked with filmmaker Steven Okazaki as an associate producer, assistant editor, and post-production supervisor on the Academy Award-nominated documentary short, THE MUSHROOM CLUB, and the Emmy award-winning feature documentary, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN, both for HBO. Kinomoto has an MFA in Film Production from San Francisco State University and has also taught film production and studies at several Bay Area universities, where he currently lives with his family.

Carrie Lozano is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. She is currently director of the IDA’s Enterprise Documentary and Pare Lorentz funds. In addition, she is a lecturer at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, she led the Bay Area Video Coalition’s National MediaMaker Fellowship; was the senior producer of the Emmy and Peabody award-winning series FAULT LINES; and was executive producer of Al Jazeera America’s documentary strand. Among other work, she produced the Academy THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND and UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS. Her recent film, THE BALLAD OF FRED HERSCH is in its third year of screenings and will broadcast in Europe in 2019.

AUDIENCE AWARD
The Audience Award lets you, our audience, honor your festival favorite. Vote for the narrative that touched your heart or the most eye-opening documentary, and give the directors much-deserved recognition. Check to see if your favorites won on the CAAM website after the end of the festival.