Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Announces 2020 Award Winners  

Media Contact: Emily Foster, Marketing Director | emily.foster@fullframefest.org

Durham, N.C. – April 22, 2020 – Seven awards for a combined value of $47,500 in cash prizes are announced for the 2020 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Full Frame is a qualifying event for nominations for the Academy Award^®Documentary Short Subject category and the Producers Guild of America Awards. The four-day event, originally scheduled to run April 2–5, was canceled amid COVID-19 concerns.

“We’re incredibly proud to say that every single award sponsor remained committed to this year’s festival,” said Deirdre Haj, Full Frame’s director. “Their generous contributions allow us to support these vibrant and important works and the artists behind them. We extend our deepest gratitude to both our sponsors and filmmakers for being a part of Full Frame, despite the canceled event.”

The Reva and David Logan Grand Jury Award is presented to Mayor, directed by David Osit. Remarking on the film,the Grand Jury members said, “Beautifully shot and edited, with a charismatic character made for film, Mayor has the virtue of being funny, gripping, and sobering all at once. Along with the portrait of a man, it is a portrait of the city of Ramallah. In showing the audience what it takes to be mayor of this city, the film very effectively plunges us into the day-to-day reality of the city at a significant political moment. Ultimately, we loved this film’s central message of the optimism born of love of place.”

The Grand Jury Award is sponsored by the Reva and David Logan Foundation. Alexandria Bombach, Steve James, and Dawn Porter participated on the jury.

The Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short is presented to Then Comes the Evening, directed by Maja Novaković. The award is provided by Drs. Barbra and Andrew Rothschild. The jurors were Mike Maggiore, Pilar Timpane, and Michael T. Workman.

The Center for Documentary Studies, of which Full Frame is a program, considers all films in competition for its Filmmaker Award and awards its 2020 prize to Garrett Bradley for Time. Representatives for the Center for Documentary Studies juried the prize: Eric Barstow, Alexa Dilworth, Dorian Gomez, Wesley Hogan, Rhon S. Manigault-Bryant, Lynn McKnight, and Elena Rue.

The Charles E. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award honors a first-time documentary feature director. The 2020 award is presented to Garrett Bradley for Time. The award is provided by the Charles E. Guggenheim Family. Juan Pablo González, Jacqueline Olive, and Lana Wilson participated on the jury.

The Franklin Humanities Institute Award, which is given to a short film that highlights documentary as a formally inventive artistic medium, is presented to Riafn, directed by Hannes Lang. The award is sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University and was juried by representatives for the institute: Eric Barstow, Josh Gibson, Shambhavi Kaul, Ranjana Khanna, Negar Mottahedeh, and Jennifer Zhou.

Representatives on behalf of the President’s Office of Duke University juried the prize for the Full Frame President’s Award, given to the best student film. This year’s award is given to Saudade, directed by Denize Galiao.

Us Kids, directed by Kim Snyder, received the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights. Provided by the Julian Price Family Foundation in memory of Melanie Taylor, the award is given to a film that addresses a significant human rights issue in the United States. Representatives from the Kathleen Bryan Edwards family juried the prize: Anne Arwood, Laura Edwards, Clay Farland, Margaret Griffin, and Pricey Harrison.

For more information on the award winners and for complete juror statements, please visit fullframefest.org.

The 24^th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will take place April 8 – 11, 2021.

About Full Frame

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of nonfiction cinema. Each spring, Full Frame welcomes over 10,000 filmmakers and film lovers from around the world to historic downtown Durham, North Carolina, for a four-day, morning-to-midnight array of nearly 100 films, as well as discussions, panels, and Southern hospitality. Set within a few city blocks, the intimate festival landscape fosters community and conversation among filmmakers, film professionals, and the public. The 24th annual festival will be held on April 8 – 11, 2021.

The festival is a program of the Center for Documentary Studies, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) affiliated with Duke University, and receives support from corporate sponsors, private foundations, and individual donors whose generosity provides the foundation that makes the event possible. The Presenting Sponsor of the festival is Duke University. To learn more about the mission of Full Frame, scheduled films, festival tickets, or how to support Full Frame, visit fullframefest.org.

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