BEST DIRECTOR — David Liban

An orphaned boy in a post-apocalyptic world, meets a grieving woman who is trying to find her lost daughter. Their journey leads them face-to-face with a despot who may have the daughter held captive.

Based on the ancient myth, Ariadne loves her half-brother Minotaur, however she also has an arranged marriage with Thesseus. She has to decide between her future or her heart

Born Just Now offers an intimate look at Marta Jovanović, a Belgrade-based artist struggling to cope with the violence that has ended an eight-year marriage. Daring to live on her own terms, Jovanović has chosen art and art-making over marriage and abuse. Through provocative acts of endurance exploring intimacy, motherhood, and the trauma of the Balkan wars, she seeks to confront, release, and liberate her own pain in the name of art. This personal portrait is a moving meditation on what it means to be a fearless female artist living in the 21st century.  

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
BEST ACTOR — Filipo Mayer

A young girl, Martina, is forced to work in her father’s pizzeria to deliver pizza though she daydreams about going to the Party Beach. She starts a relationship with a young man, Filip, who spends most of his time at home playing videogames and ordering pizza. When Martina’s best friend goes to have fun over the weekend, her strict father forbids her to go, so Martina uses Filip to circumvent her father’s ban. However, instead of her dreams coming true, Martina’s reality quickly turns into a bloody nightmare.

After a robbery gone wrong, Aaron — barricaded in a rest stop bathroom — faces down the police, hallucinations, and a grim secret. Preceded by the short film The Suicide of Lillian Sellers. 

A unique look into the lives of some of the greatest race car drivers in the south.  Featuring stories about Freddy Fryar, Joe Lee Johnson, Bob Burcham, Friday Hassler and Charlie Griffith, their journeys take us from the mountains of Chattanooga running moonshine to the short tracks of the South to the biggest NASCAR races in history.  Each and every one of them had a style of their own and all were on the verge of becoming household names.

We are witnessing the 6th Mass Extinction of our planet. We are loosing about 200 species a day. Humanity has killed 83% of all wild mammals and half of all plants. Of the birds left in the world, 70% are poultry chickens and other farmed birds.  Global industrial pollution is killing over 9 million people a year, through bad air and water.  What recourse can the people take, when there are no effective 
institutions to deal with the global one world order.  We face a clear choice: radical political transformation or deepening mass extinction.
  To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we think, who we are, and how we live.

BEST ACTRESS — Lily Yasuda

LIKE LOVE is a vaguely romantic comedy that chronicles the tender, tragic and totally unintentional friendship between a boy and a girl. Harper is a killjoy with a knack for finding the worst in everyone. Enter Jackson: serial monogamist, idealist, and king of attracting the least available person in the room. After a series of un(fortunate) circumstances prompts them to become roommates, a friendship is born. Yet their closeness inevitably sends Jackson down the rabbit hole of attraction, pushing Harper to make a choice: play along, or risk losing her best friend entirely. Savage, ridiculous, and possibly even a little romantic, LIKE LOVE is “When Harry Met Sally” for a new generation, an ode to waffles, and a love letter to anyone who found the strength to say “I don’t”.  

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - FEATURE FILM

Early December, New York City, and everyone is on the hunt for love. Why? Because they haven’t found it and because they haven’t found it, they make it into a myth and chase the myth instead. That is not love in this romantic drama of fantasy, fate, and yearning.

A post millennial journey to Italy before the coronavirus outbreak. While encountering various faces of the contemporary Italian decline, the trip turns into an existential experience arising doubts within a group of ambitious filmmakers, moved by the nostalgia of the humble life that they abandoned to follow their dreams.

A young low-level drug dealer is reunited with his estranged mom and uncle to protect him when a ruthless drug kingpin puts a hit on him.

A young man living a simple life in rural Armenia falls in love with the photo of a Las Vegas showgirl. He leaves his village to go find her, and he discovers the true America during his travels.

BEST IN FEST

If Angie Lawrence, an attorney and southern beauty, ever hopes to find love she needs to do two things: let a man walk her to the door and let go of the past. She sadly gets the opportunity to do both when her dear friend Miss Claudia passes away and leaves her a stunning southern antebellum mansion. While moving in, she discovers a diary hidden in the basement. It dates back 150 years. She becomes entranced with the diary’s history of slavery, brutality and how the bounds of time and injustice were overcome by love. Time heals the wounds and love mends the fences.

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

A group of adventurers set out across Baja California on a 5,000-mile journey to recreate the century-old expedition of two prolific and obscure naturalists.  Their search takes them on a thrilling quest—by motorcycle, airplane, boat, and horseback—to recreate the historic, unprecedented expedition across Baja. Along the way, they bear witness to the vibrant culture and unforgettable people, endure the challenges of the road, and get a glimpse into this extraordinary place and its uncertain future.

In what appears to be her last show, a burned out sketch comedy writer/director shares a behind the scenes look at the "mounting and sustaining" of "Orange is the New Orange"; a sketch comedy show that skates on the edge of disaster. It's a look at "what could go wrong, that did go wrong." In this 90-minute mockumentary, Orange County Crazies founder Cherie Kerr finds herself in the middle of the most stressful production of her 40-year career. It starts with the first table read and takes the audience to the final curtain--the last night of the run.

An enthusiastic look at the vintage buildings, homes, and businesses of Glendale California with beautiful cinematography, great interviews, wonderful music and archive photos of the "Jewel City."

BEST EDITING - FEATURE FILM

Wisper is the true story of the murder of a middle-class African American family in Northern New Jersey. In the summer of 2016, three children and their mother were found shot to death in their large suburban home. Loosely based on the personal videotapes and diaries owned by the father of the victims. Preceded by the short film Routine.