Winter Film Awards International Film Festival

Winter Film Awards International Film Festival (WFA) is an annual event founded in 2011 and held in New York City each February. The ten-day festival showcases the work of emerging filmmakers from around the world and provides an educational component geared towards helping emerging filmmakers enter the business. The Festival places an emphasis on supporting women and under-represented filmmakers and a focus on nurturing emerging filmmakers from all genres from around the world.

Works of all lengths and genres are considered for Festival screening, including narrative Fiction, Documentary, Web Series, Music Videos, Animation and Horror. Each year, Winter Film Awards selects 75-90 independent films of all genres for screening – roughly half of selections are made by women, roughly half are made by people of color. All selected films are screened at Cinema Village, one of New York City’s few remaining independent cinemas. The event concludes with a glittering awards ceremony and red carpet gala at one of NYC’s premier nightclubs. The Festival awards over $75,000 in cash, prizes and distribution opportunities.

Winter Film Awards is an all volunteer, minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. WFA's mission is to promote diversity, bridge the opportunity divide and provide a platform for under-represented artists and a variety of genres, viewpoints and approaches.

Winter Film Awards International Film Festival is an IMDB-qualifying festival and a signatory of the 50-50-20 Parity Pledge.

Selection Process[edit]

Films are submitted for consideration via FilmFreeway and several other popular submission platforms. Winter Film Awards employs approximately 50-75 submission judges each year and ensures a bias-free selection process by requiring that each submitted film must be viewed and scored by at least four judges. Judges range from film students to enthusiasts to industry veterans and ages range from 15 to 60. WFA has judges in the Philippines, Brazil, France, Mexico, Turkey, Singapore and Germany and all over the US.

For the 2019 Festival, 53% of WFA judges were women and 40% of judges were people of color.

Depending upon category, WFA accepts roughly 11-15% of submissions each year.

Awards[edit]

Winter Film Awards is a competition-based film festival and it awards films in 14 categories: Best Picture, Best Short Film, Best Animated Film, Best Music Video, Best Documentary Film, Best Horror Feature Film, Best Horror Short Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Student Film, Best Web Series, New York Perspectives Award and Outstanding Woman Director Award.

History[edit]

In 2012, the inaugural Winter Film Awards was a three-day event held at the Roy Arias Theater.

WFA expanded to a ten-day event in 2016 and relocated to screenings at Cinema Village. Winter Film Awards' gala red carpet event is held at Club 230Fifth's Empire Room each year.

WFA 2018[edit]

Winter Film Awards 2018 ran from February 22 – March 3 2018. Screenings were held from February 23-March 1 at Cinema Village. The Gala Awards Ceremony was held on March 2 at Copacabana. 674 films were submitted for consideration; 93 films were selected from 31 countries, 40% directed by women, 43% by or about people of color, 21 student films, 32 first-time directors and 33 films shot in New York City. The average selection's production budget was $18,000 USD.

Selections included 13 animated films, 13 documentaries (shorts and features), 10 feature-length non-horror narrative films, 8 horror films (shorts and features), 9 music videos, 33 non-horror narrative short films and 7 web series.

Carl Goodman, director of the Museum of the Moving Image was awarded the WFA Patron of the Cinema Award.

WFA 2019[edit]

Winter Film Awards 2019 ran from February 14-23 2019. The Opening Party on February 14 was held at VYNL. Screenings were held from February 15-21 at Cinema Village. The Gala Awards Ceremony was held on February 23 at Club 230Fifth. The Festival included 89 selected films from 32 countries, 50% directed or produced by women, 53% by or about people of color, 16 students films, 34 first-time directors and 29 films shot in New York City. The average selection's production budget was $20,000 USD.

Selections included 13 animated films, 13 documentaries (shorts and features), 10 feature-length non-horror narrative films, 9 horror films (shorts and features), 9 music videos, 25 non-horror narrative short films and 7 web series.

Official artwork for WFA2019 was created by Pratt Institute student Sarah Kim, BFA Communications Design ’19.

Educational sessions included:

Feb 15: Crowdfunding for your Indie Film with Christina Raia from Seed & Spark
Feb 15: New York State of Shooting with the Governor’s Office of Motion Picture & Television Development
Feb 19: All About Shooting in NYC with the Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment.
Feb 20: Distribution 101 for Indie Filmmakers, with IndiePix Films, SoundView Media Partners, Passion River and more.
Feb 21: Everything You Need to Know About Music for Your Film, with LoveCat Music and Btoven Music .
Feb 22: Getting the Best Production Sound for Your Indie Film, with Gotham Sound
Feb 23: Grantwriting for Filmmakers

WFA 2019 Winners:

Best Picture: "In The Life of Music" - Feature Film by Caylee So, Sok Visal (Cambodia)
NY Perspectives Award: "The Language of Ball" - Short Film by Ramón Rodríguez (United States)
Outstanding Woman Filmmaker: "Back to Berlin" - Documentary Film by Catherine Lurie (United Kingdom)
Best Director: "Yellow" - Short Film by Sarah Deakins (Canada)
Best Documentary: "New York Scherzo" - Documentary Film by Shaan Couture (United States)
Best Horror Feature: "To Tokyo" - Horror Film by Caspar Seale-Jones (United Kingdom)
Best Horror Short: "Lucys Tale" - Horror Film by Chelsea Lupkin (United States)
Best Short Film: "Sac de Merde" - Short Film by Greg Chwerchak (United States)
Best Sound: "Baby Wont You Please Come Home" - Short Film by Christopher Piazza (United States)
Best Animated Film: "The Burden" - Animated Film by Niki Lindroth Von Bahr (Sweden)
Best Music Video: "Abballati Abballati (Dance Dance)" - Music Video by Andrew Hachem (Lebanon)
Best Web Series: "The Vault" - Web Series by Sara Martins (Canada)
Best Student Film: "I Loaf You" - Animated Film by YenJuen Lee (United States)
Best Actor: Justin Andrew Davis, "You Look Great" - Short Film by Justin Andrew Davis (United States)
Best Actress: Michelle Hurst, "Baby Wont You Please Come Home" - Short Film by Christopher Piazza (United States)