From the Artistic Director
Our winning feature film was Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom - a feel-good comedy drams from Bhutan, where a teacher is forced to move to the mountains against his will, but ends up discovering much more than he had anticipated. We hope to screen this film soon at New ark in the regular seasons.
The winning documentary Silver Spitfire: The Longest Flight scored an amazing 98.5 out of 100 from the audience, who were delighted by the presence of one of the pilots, Matt Jones, who held court with an intriguing Q&A.
Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West took out Best Retrospective film. This was included in the Enno Morricone strand of the Festival, and interestingly, the documentary about the composer - Ennio came in third in the documentary votes.
A UK film, Stumbling by Jonathan Harden, won Best Independent film. A hard-hitting film told in the format of a documentary, and focusing on a lead up to a sexual assault.
We are delighted that you all voted for over 120 films with such a wide number of subjects, fact and fiction, which gives audiences, film makers, and the Festival team, such valuable feedback and insight.
Congratulations to the all the winning film makers!
Roger Gibson, Artistic director.
29 August 2022
