Film Festival names this year’s award winners

FHFF shares news about the win­ning films from this year’s event.

The Fri­day Har­bor Film Fes­ti­val thanks all the film lovers, film­mak­ers, vol­un­teers, and spon­sors for mak­ing the tenth anniver­sary fes­ti­val a suc­cess. Over 600 peo­ple viewed doc­u­men­taries at the in-the­atre fes­ti­val. Twen­ty-nine film­mak­ers attend­ed, speak­ing at Q&As and at the Film­mak­ers Forum.

The 2022 Life­time Achieve­ment Award was pre­sent­ed to Sidewinder Films/Foundation for Glob­al Sports Devel­op­ment, fol­lowed by a screen­ing of their pro­duc­tion of Water­man. Orcas Island edu­ca­tor and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Robert Dash was hon­ored with the Local Hero award. He pre­sent­ed a stun­ning slideshow of his work show­ing the com­plex pat­terns and tex­tures of micro-nature.

Audi­ence Choice Awards were announced Sun­day evening, fol­lowed by a screen­ing of the win­ning films:

• Best Over­all Fea­ture – The Long Rid­er, direct­ed by Sean Cisterna
• Explor­ers & Adven­tures – Wat­son, direct­ed by Les­ley Chilcott
• Tales from the Heart – Corky, direct­ed by Chris­tine Caruso
• Things to Con­sid­er – The Pol­li­na­tors, direct­ed by Peter Nelson
• Best Short Film – Bring the Salmon Home, direct­ed by Shane Anderson

Film­mak­ers and film lovers have been lav­ish in their praise of the fes­ti­val. “I think you have set a new stan­dard for how all local and even nation­al film fes­ti­vals should be orga­nized and run,” said cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Ron Pre­cious. “After a two-year hia­tus, you have come back stronger than ever and deliv­ered a pri­mo fes­ti­val. The Film­mak­ers’ Forum was anoth­er high­light for me. It gives me such great joy to hear today’s young doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ers express­ing their con­cerns about this art form and their pas­sion to tell a sto­ry that has mean­ing and consequence.”

“Thanks so much for a remark­able fes­ti­val this past week­end,” Local Hero award win­ner Robert Dash said. “Ran­na and I enjoyed it tremen­dous­ly, and we were over­whelmed by the hos­pi­tal­i­ty and pos­i­tive spir­it that wel­comed us all along the way. It was a great plea­sure to con­nect with you, and to net­work with oth­er cre­ative par­tic­i­pants. You’ve got a great for­mu­la and the best peo­ple to make it hap­pen. May this fes­ti­val con­tin­ue to flour­ish and inspire far into the future.”

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