Saturday, June 25, 2011

Grand Jury Prize for Our School at Silverdocs!

Photo credit: Mona Nicoara (c) Sat Mic Film, LLC

We won the Sterling Award for Best US Feature at the Silverdocs festival today! It is a tremendous honor to receive the grand jury prize at such a prestigious festival - and we intend to leverage the life out of it! Thank you to Silverdocs for embracing our film, and to Silver Spring audiences for their warm,  enthusiastic response!

This is the motivation of the jury:

The cinematic quality of this film, the filmmaker's vision and the power of the story's core issue impressed the jury, revealing an intimate depiction of a marginalized and underrepresented community whose voice is seldom heard. 

The filmmaker brings to light a timely human rights issue with compassion and intimacy. With a unique point of view, we are given access to a legacy of discrimination and disenfranchisement that oppresses a community.

The film captures the mundane, humorous and joyous aspects of life, as well as practices that are harrowing and powerful and leave an undeniably memorable imprint on the viewer.

We were vaguely more articulate in the ceremony itself, but it basically boils down to this: Wow.