11/12/2014

'Dys-' and 'The Cold Heart' win Audience Awards at Cellar Door Film Festival


The Canadian horror film Dys- wins the CDFF Audience Award for Best Feature
Ottawa's Cellar Door Film Festival has  announced the two Audience Award winners for CDFF 2014. Dys-, directed by Maude Michaud, wins the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at CDFF ‘14 while The Cold Heart (Das Kalte Herz), directed by Hannes Rall, emerges with the Audience Award for Best Short Film. The selection of the Canadian horror film Dys- and the German animated fable The Cold Heart makes an especially fine pair for Cellar Door’s celebration of both Canadian and international filmmakers.



The Cold Heart is the Audience favourite for Best Short Film
Dys- screened on Saturday night with a very engaging Q&A with Michaud and actor Alex Goldrich. (The chat was moderated by yours truly, but the audience was so enthusiastic about the film that all I really had to do was hold the microphone and point.) The Cold Heart, on the other hand, emerged as the favourite from the strong competition in Sunday's shorts programme 'From the Basement of the World.'

I'm very happy to see these two strong and diverse films win the kudos of Ottawa audiences. The response for the festival was very encouraging. Friday night's screening of Roseville sold out and had turn aways while Saturday's screening of Dys- was a great night since the audience responded quite strongly to the provocative film, which is relief since it lets the CDFF team know that Ottawa audiences are hungry for films that take risks. Sunday's screenings were also lots of fun, with the shorts programme having an especially  good turnout to see local filmmakers Carmelo Zucco and Dylan Hunt-Weeks share their films The Phoenix and Experiment 467.

Thanks to everyone who came out to support the strange and unusual!