The narrative feature “The Rocket” and the documentary “The Kill Team” won the top awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, which handed out prizes on Thursday, April 25 evening in a ceremony in New York City, TheWrap reported.
Other films that were honored by the Tribeca juries include “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” “Before Snowfall” and “Let the Fire Burn.”
In awards handed out on Wednesday and earlier on Thursday, Meera Menon won the first Nora Ephron Prize and the films “The Lobbyists” and “(T)ERROR” won Tribeca All Access Creative Promise awards.
In the Thursday night ceremony at the Conrad New York, “The Rocket” won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, which was chosen by a jury consisting of Bryce Dallas-Howard, Blythe Danner, Paul Haggis, Kenneth Longergan and Jessica Winter. Set in Laos, the feature from Australian director Kim Mordaunt follows a 10-year-old boy as he struggles to escape his country’s legacy of war; its young non-professional actor Sitthiphon Disamoe was named the festival’s best actor.
Other narrative winners included actress Veerle Baetens from “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” a Dutch drama set in the world of bluegrass music; and “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors,” Sam Fleischner’s look at an autistic teen in Queens in the days before Hurricane Sandy.
A documentary jury consisting of Joe Berlinger, Sandi DuBowski, Whoopi Goldberg, Mira Sorvino and Evan Rachel Wood named Dan Krauss’ “The Kill Team” (right), about a group of young American soldiers accused of war crimes, the festival’s best doc.
Separate juries chose Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais and Sean Dunne as best new directors for Hoss-Desmarais’ narrative film “Whitewash” and Dunne’s documentary “Oxyana.”
Short film awards went to Edoardo Ponti’s “The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars” and Bess Kargman’s “Coach,” while the new Bombay Sapphire Award for Transmedia went to the Hurricane Sandy project “Sandy Storyline.”
