The Audience Award Best Documentary Feature category wound up in a tie, with The Girls in the Band and Wish Me Away sharing the top honor. Judy Chaikin directed The Girls in the Band about women jazz musicians, and Bobbie Birleffii and Beverly Kopf helmed Wish Me Away about singer-songwriter Chely Wright, a devout Christian who also happens to be a lesbian.
Hungary’s official Best Foreign Language Film Oscar entry, The Turin Horse, earned the Palm Spring Film Festival’s FIPRESCI Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. PSIFF describes the film as “an unforgettable end-of-days parable largely confined to an ascetic shack shared by an old man and his daughter as a terrible blight takes hold outside.”
Announcing the winners, Festival Director Darryl Macdonald stated, “This year’s line up encompassed a particularly satisfying blend of challenging but highly compelling works, more broadly accessible crowd pleasers and debut films distinguished by their distinctive storytelling craft and technical prowess. The audience balloting skewed more highly favorable across the board than in recent years, and our juries have made astute and well-reasoned choices in every instance. In summary, it’s been a very good year for the cinema, and a hugely rewarding year for all who worked on or participated in this labor of filmic love.”
Source: Palm Springs International Film Festival – January 15, 2012
—Posted by Rebecca Murray
