Congrats to a NolaVie regular and Film Fest winner

NolaVie extends its congratulations to Hollywood South columnist and regular contributor Brian Friedman, who produced and wrote the screenplay for King of New Orleans, which took home a Special Jury Award at the New Orleans Film Festival. Read Renee Peck’s interview with the film’s star, David Jensen, here. Read Nola.Com/Times-Picayune movie writer Mike Scott’s review of the film here.

This year’s pool of film festival submissions numbered more than 3,400 and represented 100 countries. The 172 films selected to be screened included 48 features and 124 shorts. This year marked the organization’s first as an Oscar-qualifying festival, in the category of documentary shorts. That means that jury winner
Invisible (Niewidzialne), by director Zofia Pregowska, qualifies for an Academy Award nomination.

• We Can’t Live Without the Cosmos, Director Konstantin Bronzit, and The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal (El sol como un gran animal oscuro), directors Christina Felisgrau and Ronnie Rivera, for animation;
• Something About Which Nothing Can Be Said, director Ted Kennedy, for experimental short;
• World Wide Woven Bodies (Verdensvevde kropper), director Truls Krane Meby, Drifters, director Anu Valia, and Turtle (Wu gui), director Jordan Schiele, for narrative shorts;
• Little Hero, directors Marcus A. McDougald and Jennifer Medvin, and the above-mentioned Invisible, for documentary shorts;
• The Love Song of M. Anderson Vincent, director Chen Gu, and Rite, director Morgan Roberts, Louisiana shorts;
• Consequence, directors Jonathan Nguyen and Ashley George, and the above-mentioned King of New Orleans, director Allen Frederic, for Louisiana features;
• Hotel Nueva Isla, director Irene Gutierrez, and Embers, director Claire Carré, for documentary features;
• Grazia Tricarico (director of shorts Mona Blonde, Persefone), Programmer’s Award for Artistic Vision.