'La Bola Negra' Wins Denver Film Festival Top Prize — SkimNews
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- La Bola Negra won the Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Best Feature Film at the 49th Denver Film Festival, held October 22 to November 1, after taking the audience award at the BFI London Film Festival and the same prize at TIFF in September; the Spanish film by Los Javis, about gay desire and Federico García Lorca, is now locked in for multiple Oscar nominations.
- I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly's Sly Stallone biopic starring Anthony Ippolito, took Denver's narrative feature audience award — the same prize it won at the Virginia Film Festival in October — after finishing runner-up to La Bola Negra in Toronto; it opens in select theaters Thursday ahead of a November 20 wide release.
- Whispers in May, Dongnan Chen's CPH:DOX-winning nonfiction portrait of female friendship in the twilight of adolescence, received the Maysles Brothers Award for best documentary from a jury including Chris Murphy and Justine Suzanne Jones, who called it "formally daring and emotionally authentic"; the film is still seeking distribution.
- Denver Film Festival showcased 130 films, including many awards-season favorites, with Denver Film CEO Kevin Smith and artistic director Matthew Campbell hosting special guests Carrie Coon, feted for "The Liberation," John Leguizamo for "The Odyssey," John Cho, D'Arcy Carden, Peter Gamble, Indya Moore and Hans Petter Moland.
- Good Help, by Rebekah Henderson and Lilah Park, won the documentary feature audience award, while "We Were Here" (Pranav Bhasin, India) took the short-film audience award and "The River" (Mara Tasker) the local True Grit Award.
- Hyena by Altay Ulan Yang (China/US) won the short-film grand jury award, "End of Things" by Bruce Tetsuya took the True Grit Short Film Award, and "Hunting" by Lea Favre won the Marilyn Marsh Saint-Veltri Award for best student animation short.
Why it matters: Denver handed two Oscar-track titles different kinds of momentum: 'La Bola Negra' pairs TIFF and London audience prizes with Denver's juried Best Feature trophy, while 'I Play Rocky' repeated its Virginia audience win and opens wide November 20. One is a juried laureate; the other is the crowd favorite with a release date already set.
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