RIVERRUN FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES JURORS

Jurors include filmmakers, animators

"The RiverRun International Film Festival, which runs April 4-13, 2014, today released its full lineup of jurors for the 16th annual Festival. These industry professionals will be responsible for evaluating the films from RiverRun’s competitive categories and selecting the films and filmmakers to receive jury prizes. This year’s competitive sections include Documentary Feature, Narrative Feature, Animated Shorts, Narrative Shorts and Documentary Shorts.

This year, RiverRun’s narrative and documentary juries include a broad cross-section of film industry veterans, including filmmakers: Andrea Arnold, Barry Jenkins and Andrey Paounov; writers/critics: Mike D’Angelo, Marjorie Baumgarten and Jeremy Kay; film festival programmers: Erik Jambor, David Wilson and Ben Fowlie; scriptwriting consultant Jennine Lanouette and Matt Graham from PBS. RiverRun will also include a film student from an area university on each of its juries. This year, students from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina Greensboro will be represented. Additionally, the 2014 animation jury includes Linda Beck, Gary Schwartz and Kelsey Stark. All of RiverRun’s jurors will be on-site during the Festival to evaluate and discuss the films in their respective sections.

“We are excited about the array of talent and experience contained on our 2014 juries,” said RiverRun’s Executive Director, Andrew Rodgers. “We think we’ve put together a tremendous mix of film industry veterans, comprising a wide array of backgrounds and expertise, to evaluate our films this year.”

Jury awards will be announced at 3:00pm on Sunday, April 13 at a private Festival ceremony. Here is a list of all the professional jurors serving at this year’s Festival:

NARRATIVE FEATURES JURORS
Filmmaker ANDREA ARNOLD was born in Dartford, England. She studied at the American Film Institute. Her short film Wasp (2003) won the Academy Award for best live-action short. Both her first and second feature films, Red Road (2006) and Fish Tank (2009) respectively, were awarded the prestigious Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Fish Tank also brought home a BAFTA for outstanding British film. Her film Wuthering Heights screened at RiverRun in 2012.

MIKE D’ANGELO was among the first handful of people to begin writing regular movie reviews on the Internet, having created his site The Man Who Viewed Too Much in the summer of 1995, while still an undergrad at New York University. He later became the chief film critic for Time Out New York (2000-2004), wrote a monthly film column for Esquire (2004-2008), and launched a biweekly column, Scenic Routes, for The A.V. Club (2009-present). Currently, Mike is a critic for the Las Vegas Weekly, for which he's been writing since 2005, and is a regular contributor to The A.V. Club and Pitchfork Media’s The Dissolve.

BARRY JENKINS is an award-winning filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. He worked as an assistant on Their Eyes Were Watching God. His feature film debut, Medicine for Melancholy, was released in theaters by IFC Films and hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by A.O. Scott of The New York Times. In 2010, Jenkins co-founded the commercial collective Strike Anywhere Films. A nominee for several Spirit and Gotham Awards, Jenkins’ recent projects include the shorts Tall EnoughA Young CoupleRemigration and Chlorophyl. In addition to being a curator and presenter at the Telluride Film Festival, he is a United States Artists Smith Fellow and was recently named one of the 20 Directors to Watch in world cinema by The New York Times.


DOCUMENTARY FEATURES JURORS
MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN is a film critic and Senior Editor at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since its founding in 1981. She has been the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for the last 25 years. Baumgarten has served on past festival juries at the Seattle and Slamdance Film Festivals, and is a member of the Austin Film Critics Association and the Association of Women Film Journalists.

ANDREY PAOUNOV graduated from the Bulgarian National Academy for Theater and Film Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is a writer and director best known for his documentary feature films. His debut film Georgi and the Butterflies won the Silver Wolf at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. His second feature The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories was included in the 46th International Critics' Week of the Cannes Film Festival 2007. The Boy Who Was a King premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Best Documentary Feature Jury Award at RiverRun in 2012.

DAVID WILSON, together with Paul Sturtz, founded the Ragtag Film Society in 1998, the Ragtag Cinema in 2000 and the True/False Film Fest in 2004, where they continue to serve as Co-Conspirators. As Director of True/False, David has been invited to fests around the world to serve as a panelist, moderator and juror. He has also served as a consultant for the Creative Capital Foundation, the LEF Moving Image Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. As a filmmaker, David had his national television premiere on POV on PBS, and premiered his first feature, We Always Lie to Strangers, at SXSW in 2013. Wilson is a 1996 graduate of Hampshire College in Massachusetts and a lifelong resident of Columbia, Missouri.


NARRATIVE SHORTS JURORS
ERIK JAMBOR co-founded the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham, Alabama, serving as Director for its first eight years. In 2007 he moved to Bend, Oregon, to run the BendFilm Festival. Since 2008, Erik has served as Executive Director of Indie Memphis, which runs year-round programming and special events, including the annual Indie Memphis Film Festival. Erik has served on numerous film festival juries, including SXSW, Slamdance, Atlanta, Nashville and the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy.

JENNINE LANOUETTE is a story consultant, screenwriting lecturer and blogger. She has lectured at Lucasfilm and Pixar at The New School and School of Visual Arts in New York. Her clients include Pixar, Independent Television Service, Film Arts Foundation, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and others. Currently, she is converting her screenplay analysis lectures into a series of multimedia e-books that will feature video, audio, photo galleries and interactive charts in a new media-rich learning experience.

JEREMY KAY is the U.S. editor of Screen International, covering all business aspects of the global independent film industry. Born in London and currently residing in Los Angeles, Kay regularly travels to the world's leading festivals at Cannes, Berlin and Toronto and is a frequent panel moderator at industry events and speaker at colleges. He has written for The Guardian, Time Out and other publications on film, news and sport.


DOCUMENTARY SHORT JURORS
BEN FOWLIE is the Founder of the Camden International Film Festival and Points North Doc Forum. Now in its eighth year, the Festival is recognized as one of the top 25 international documentary festivals in the world, and one of the twelve best small town film festivals in the U.S. He currently sits on the industry advisory board and nominating committee for the Cinema Eye Honors, and is a co-founder and programmer for The DocYard, an award-winning bi-weekly screening series held at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

MATTHEW GRAHAM has more than 17 years of experience in commercial and non-commercial content development, production, acquisition and distribution. He founded and is currently Senior Director of PBS Digital Studios—winner of 5 Webby awards and home to hit properties like IdeaChannel and PBS Icons Remixed. They commission, produce, and distribute the world's most awesome public media videos. Their first viral hit, the Mister Rogers Remix "Garden of Your Mind," hit #1 on YouTube and has been streamed more than 9 Million times



ANIMATED SHORT JURORS
LINDA BECK is a Producer and Development Scout with a passion for connecting artists and executives. She has produced content for children (Nickelodeon, Disney) and adults (History Channel, A&E, PBS) and is equally at home in both animation boutiques and major networks. Beck is Co-President of ASIFA-East, the east coast chapter of the International Animated Film Association.

GARY SCHWARTZ is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, award-winning animator, director, artist and educator.  Through his company, Single Frame Films, Gary produced, designed and directed animation for Disney, Sesame Street, MTV, Fox Television, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and others. Mr. Schwartz is currently Lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design. His kinetic cinema sculptures, installations and films have been exhibited in major museums and galleries internationally.

KELSEY STARK is an award-winning artist and animator whose work pushes the boundaries of storytelling. She uses a blend of traditional and experimental forms of animation to create the textural and visceral imagery that comprises her work, and draws from the poetry of human fear and ennui to generate the content for her art. In addition to creating her own films, Kelsey works in the animation industry, bringing an unconventional approach to many commercial and independent documentary projects.

STUDENT JURORS
AUGGIE HESCHMEYER, JUSTIN HOOVER, SPENCER LUCAS of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, SIERA SCHUBACH of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and ANNIE DANZI, CHARLOTTE BROWN, and KELLY MCKENNA of Wake Forest University Documentary Film Program,

SPONSORS: The sponsors of the 2014 RiverRun International Film Festival help sustain the organization's mission to foster a greater appreciation of cinema and a deeper understanding of the many people, cultures and perspectives of our world through regular interaction with great films and filmmakers. Festival sponsors include: Title Sponsors: The Arts Council of Winston Salem and Forsyth County, Reynolds American, The University of North Carolina School of the Arts; Presenting Sponsors: City of Winston-Salem, Millennium Fund; Marquee Sponsors: Flow Companies, Elephant in the Room, John W. and Anna H. Hanes Foundation, Wells Fargo, Hanesbrands Inc.; Premiere Sponsors: Wake Forest University, JDL Castle Corporation, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, Visit Winston-Salem and Kilpatrick Design.


TICKETS AND INFO: Tickets are on sale at the Stevens Center box office, via www.riverrunfilm.com or over the phone (336-721-1945). It is recommended to purchase tickets in person or over the phone to avoid third-party handling fees. For up-to-date information, or for details about volunteering at the Festival, visit www.riverrunfilm.com or call 336-724-1502."
Submitted Press Release

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