More than 6,500 attend '08 festival

OREM — LDS Film Festival founder Christian Vuissa said it several times.

"There are more people in this room than attended the festival combined our first year," he said as he surveyed a packed house on Jan. 16 at the SCERA Center for the Arts.

The first festival drew fewer than 1,000 viewers while the seventh festival ended with an attendance count of more than 6,500.

Full-length feature films such as "Forever Strong," "TAKE," "The Errand of Angels," and "Tears of a King: The Latter Days of Elvis" drew in the largest audiences while premiere documentaries such as "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons" and "The Off-Court Story of Kresimir Cosic" pulled in substantial audiences as well.

"The festival has proven again that LDS filmmaking is alive and well. We couldn't be more pleased with the program this year and the excellent films and presentations we were able to gather for a great festival," Vuissa said. "We are now already getting excited for next year."

The winners of the short film competition, 24-hour filmmaking marathon, and script competitions were announced at an informal awards ceremony Saturday night. Feature films are not in competition at the LDS Film Festival. The festival also awarded two honorary awards for special accomplishments in LDS filmmaking.

The 2008 Pioneer Award recipient is Sterling Van Wagenen, co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival and founding executive of the Sundance Institute.

The 2008 Visionary Award went to Greg Whiteley, the director of "New York Doll," for making an LDS film that strongly appeals to an LDS and general audience.

Awards in the short films competition included first place to "Der Ostwind", written and directed by Kohl Glass with visual effects by Rob Au, and second place to "The Lost Journal of Vice Marceaux" by JR Burningham. Third place went to "Butterflies" by Andy Bailey.

See the complete list of winners at: www.ldsfilmfestival.org/08_winners.php.

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