Saturday Night's Filmmaker Awards ceremony at the Sarasota Opera House (followed by our triumphant screening of Joe Berlinger's Paul Simon documentary Under African Skies) was a rousing success. The entire evening was enchanting and uplifting and perhaps never more so than when Allison Koehler brought out her youthFEST award winners to take the stage and take a well-deserved bow. These are the filmmakers of tomorrow here today and it will be a thrill to see what each of them does next. I had the pleasure of interviewing many of the filmmakers who won awards Saturday night and can tell you first hand the level of passion, committment and brilliance each and every one of our nominees and winners brings to their work. A big round of applause for everyone and without further ado, here are the winners!  

Photo by Becky Bolletti

Elena wins this year’s

Sarasota Film Festival Narrative Feature prize

Big Boys Gone Bananas!* wins Documentary Feature 

The Independent Visions Prize awarded to

The Unspeakable Act

Sarasota, Florida – April 21st – The 2012 Sarasota Film Festival announced this year’s jury and audience award winners at the historic Sarasota Opera House in downtown Sarasota. Elena directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev took home this year’s Narrative Feature Jury prize. Big Boys Gone Bananas!* by director Fredrik Gertten was the Documentary Jury Prize winner.  Two special jury prizes were awarded; in the Narrative category Alps directed by Giorgos Lanthimos took

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I cannot urge you enough to take a look at all the amazing entries in our Documentary Film Competition! If you're interested in nature and the environment you will love Chasing Ice and The Atomic States of America! Interested in the economy? Detropia is the one for you. Ballet? First Position offers a visually stunning look at young ballet dancers in competition. The justice system? Justice for Sale is your flim. In you were enlightened and moved by How to Die in Oregon last year than you must see The Patron Saints this year! The David "little guy" versus the "Goliath" big corporations? Big Boys Gone Bananas is your ticket. And if you love fringe radio and want to know how giants like Bob Dylan first gained notice on the air, I present to you Radio Unnameable! CLICK ON ANY OF THE FILM TITLES I JUST LISTED TO BUY TICKETS NOW! I mean it, Speed Racer, they're going FAST!

THE INSIDER: What inspired you to make a documentary about the legendary radio presenter Bob Fass? 

PAUL LOVELACE: I co-directed a previous film called The Holy Modal Rounders... Bound to Lose (which screened at SFF in 2006) about the psychedelic folk duo from New York City. They were on Radio Unnameable many times in the 60's and 70's, especially co-founder Peter Stampfel, who still goes on Bob's show today. Peter would talk about this crazy and great radio program that was unlike anything on the air, then and now. We also heard that Bob Fass had in his possession an unprecedented audio archive, so we were

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