DALLAS VIDEOFEST 29 Juried Award Winning Films:
Best Short:
Stephen Crompton’s SWEET LOVE
“SWEET LOVE represents the best kind of storytelling, where great specificity of detail is used to tell universal truths about the human condition. We follow one seemingly ordinary old man through the quotidian mundanities of his life in a Florida retirement community, slowly realizing through the beautifully photographed presentation of that life, combined with gentle revelations about his past, that his is a model of a fully human existence, simultaneously sublime and ridiculous, and therefore, magical. Pure cinema,” said short judge, Christopher Llewellyn Reed.
Jury Prize for Animation Short:
Sandra Schiessl’s CHIKA DIE HÜNDIN IM GHETTO (CHIKA DOG FROM THE GHETTO) (Germany)
Jury Prize for Narrative Short:
Sheila Schroeder’s Happy F-ing Valentine’s Day
Jury Prize for Experimental Short:
Kristen Lauth Shaeffer’s 349
Best Feature Documentary: 
Sam Pollard’s TWO TRAINS RUNNIN’
“Once again, the selection for the Best Documentary in the Dallas VideoFest was very difficult with so many innovative entries, each worthy in its own right. But we settled on Sam Pollard’s illuminating TWO TRAINS RUNNIN’, an exploration of cultural discovery amidst social upheaval. Against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, this compelling documentary reveals the little-known quest to find two legendary blues legends, with Pollard brilliantly documenting the confluence of African American politics and culture in 1964,” said documentaries judge, Ron Simon.
Special Jury Prize:
Ferne Pearlstein’s THE LAST LAUGH
Best Narrative:
Roger Deutsch’s THE BOY ON THE TRAIN (Hungary)
Jury Prizes:
- Anna Biller’s LOVE WITCH
- Gabriel Duran’s STREETS OF A SCION
Big D Mobile III:
Stepan Etrych’s BUBBLES DON’T LIE (Czech Republic)
Big D Mobile III’s Honorable Mentions:
- Sven D.’s THIS MOMENT
- Dorukhan Turan’s THE ACT
Meta Media Award:
Diane E. Carson and Robert Johnson’s OTHER PEOPLE’S FOOTAGE: COPYRIGHT & FAIR USE
Texas Show Winner:
Fatimah Shadiah Jawad’s RASHAD RELEASED (Arlington)
Shorts Judges
- Christopher Llewellyn Reed – Chair of the Film & Moving Image Department at Stevenson University; lead film critic for Hammer to Nail, a website devoted to independent cinema
- Shilyh Warren – Assistant Professor of Film and Aesthetic Studies
Narrative Feature Judges
- Joe Dishner – Founding co-publisher of The Austin Chronicle
- Christopher Bell – Former critic for the blog, The Playlist; active filmmaker
Documentary Judges
- Ron Simon – Curator of Television and Radio at the Paley Center for Media; professor of media history
- Daniel E. García– a Peruvian filmmaker; Assistant Professor University of Texas at Arlington
Texas Show Judges
- Justina Walford – Artistic Director of Women Texas Film Festival
- Cameron Nelson – 2014 IFP Narrative Labs Fellow; Columbia Graduate Student
- Gabriel Duran – director of the Festival De Cine Latino Americano
About Dallas VideoFest 29:
VideoFest (VideoFest.org) is now the oldest and largest video festival in the United States and continues to garner critical and popular acclaim. VideoFest prides itself on bringing films to the theater that are rarely available to be seen anywhere else. Films like Experimental/Art Films, Animation, Narrative and Documentary Shorts, as well as Documentary and Narrative Features and some hard-to-find Classic TV episodes and Classic Films are often in the mix.
History of VideoFest: Cutting-Edge Art
Merging art and technology since 1987, VideoFest has specialized in independent, alternative, and non-commercial media, presenting hard-to-find works rarely seen on television, in movie theaters, or elsewhere, despite their artistic excellence and cultural and social relevance. Even in a Web 4.0 environment where everything is seemingly available on the Internet, the VideoFest provides curatorial guidance, a critical voice in the wilderness navigating the vast and diverse landscape of media, helping to interpret its cultural and artistic significance. The event provides a communal environment for real-time, face-to-face dialogue between makers and audiences.
Dallas VideoFest 29 Sponsors
MAJOR SPONSORS: Jeff & Jani Leuschel; City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs; Texas Commission on the Art; Dallas Film Commission; The National Endowment for the Arts; AMS Pictures; Alford Media Services; KERA; CharlieUniformTango; Mockingbird Station; Prekindle; and Selig Polyscope Company. Sponsors: Angelika Film Center Dallas; FilmFreeway; Studio Movie Grill; Harry Moss Foundation; F R E E M A N Audio Visual Solutions; Proof and Pantry; Jersey Mike’s on Greenville; and Instagram Cat Mom. REBIRTH OF A NATION Co-Sponsors: Ignite Arts Dallas/SMU Meadows School of the Arts; MAP – Make Art with Purpose. Dallas VideoFest 29 Lounge Sponsor: Dallas Film Commission. Media Sponsors: KERA’s Art & Seek; AMS Pictures; The Common Desk; Selig Film News; Sell.com; SullivanPerkins; TheaterJones; and Freeman. Special Programs Sponsors: Fort Worth Film Commission; Houston Film Commission; Texas Film Commission; and Texas Association of Film Commission. Sponsors and Contributors-Special Thanks: Jeff & Jani Leuschel; Jim & Deborah Nugent; Spencer Michlin; Andy Streitfeld; and Texas Theatre. Transportation: American Airlines. Content Support: Women in Film.Dallas.
ABOUT VIDEO ASSOCIATION OF DALLAS
The mission of the Video Association is to promote an understanding of video as a creative medium and cultural force in our society, and to support and advance the work of Texas artists working in video and the electronic arts. The Video Association of Dallas (VAD) is a 501(c)(3) organization incorporated on April 25, 1989. It began in 1986 as a weekend event, “Video As A Creative Medium,” presented at the Dallas Museum of Art by independent curators Barton Weiss and John Held. That first event, which included two nights of video by selected local and national video artists, was a great popular success, which led to the founding of the Dallas Video Festival (DVF) in 1987. Video Association of Dallas also presents the 24-Hour Video Race, North Texas Universities Film Festival, Three Star Cinema, and other programs throughout the year.
