School of Visual Arts Announces Winners of the 29th Dusty Film & Animation Festival

SVA Theater, 333 West 23rd Street. New York City

May 10, 2018, New York, NY—Mary Lee Grisanti, acting chair of the BFA Film and BFA Animation programs at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), has announced the winners of the competition categories for the 29th Dusty Film & Animation Festival, which held its awards ceremony on Tuesday night at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, New York City.

The festival’s range of storytelling projects—both fiction and nonfiction—were shot all over the world and embraced subjects from refugees to romance, mourning to #Metoo. The winning films were selected by a jury of industry professionals, and the honors included special awards from New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) and Independent Film Project (IFP). The full winners’ list appears below.

• Outstanding Film: Theo Le Sourd, How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?
• Outstanding Documentary: Shelby Hougui, Bread Machine
• Special Jury Award for Social Documentary: Paula Cury Melo, Adrift
• Outstanding Achievement in Directing: SunWoo Park, Wu Ming Hua
• Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Emmanuella Zachariou, Memoriam
• Outstanding Achievement in Editing: KiDuck Kim, Sink Deep
• Outstanding Achievement in Screenwriting: Mina Elwell, Hellicious
• Human Spirit Award Film: Ignacio Garcia Fry, El Pescador, and Jialing Sun, Acre
• IFP Award: Alex Alviar, Tierra
• Ha Phuoung & NYWIFT Scholarship: Emilie Simonini, Max & Emilie
• Gotham Honorary Sound Grant: Paul Mousey, Ani and Alex Choi, Other MindsOutstanding Film: Theo Le Sourd, How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?
• Outstanding Documentary: Shelby Hougui, Bread Machine
• Special Jury Award for Social Documentary: Paula Cury Melo, Adrift
• Outstanding Achievement in Directing: SunWoo Park, Wu Ming Hua
• Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Emmanuella Zachariou, Memoriam
• Outstanding Achievement in Editing: KiDuck Kim, Sink Deep
• Outstanding Achievement in Screenwriting: Mina Elwell, Hellicious
• Human Spirit Award Film: Ignacio Garcia Fry, El Pescador, and Jialing Sun, Acre
• IFP Award: Alex Alviar, Tierra
• Ha Phuoung & NYWIFT Scholarship: Emilie Simonini, Max & Emilie
• Gotham Honorary Sound Grant: Paul Mousey, Ani and Alex Choi, Other Minds

• Human Spirit Award: Lydia Fama, Long Distance Train
• Ha Phuoung & NYWIFT Scholarship: Kira Clines, Do or Dare
• Outstanding Animated Film: Sonja Von Marensdorff, Crow, and Branwyn Driscoll, Cadence
• Special Jury Award for Writing in Animation: Andres Padilla, Slides
• Special Jury Award for Experimental Technique in Animation: Dani Duek, Porcelana
• Outstanding Achievement in Character Animation: I Should Really Go Home
• Outstanding Achievement in Animation Production Design: Jackie Snyder, Moth's Café
• SYKASA Animation Award: Xinhui Ma

Named after SVA Founder Silas “Dusty” H. Rhodes, the four-day festival took place from Saturday, May 5, through Tuesday, May 8, and featured over 100 live-action and animated films by graduating students from SVA’s BFA Film and BFA Animation programs.

“Our students are well known for our high production values and professional craftsmanship,” says Grisanti. “This year, the power of storytelling stood out above all. The commitment to taking personal and artistic risks—to telling the story only you could tell—was astonishing. The animation was all unforgettable, whether hilarious takes on ordinary life or glimpses into imaginary worlds. The live-action filmmaking was raw and personal—from documentaries you didn’t want to believe were real, to narratives so real they seemed like documentaries. Even in genre, like Emmanuella Zachariou’s thriller about a serial killer—the depth of emotion was palpable.”

This year’s headlining sponsors of the Dustys included AbelCine, ARC - Adorama Rental Co, Animation magazine, ARRI Rental, B&H Photo, Blue Sky Studios, The Criterion Collection, Gotham Sound, The Ha Phuong Foundation, IFP, International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600 IATSE, Movie Magic, New York Women in Film & Television, SCS Agency, Inc., and Technicolor PostWorks New York.

To learn more about the Dustys and this year’s projects, visit dusty.sva.edu. For information about SVA’s BFA Film and BFA Animation programs, visit filmandanimation.sva.edu.

SVA was recently named the #1 animation college on the East Coast and ranked #3 nationally among the top two percent of schools by Animation Career Review, one of the top animation school rankers in the country. Its BFA Animation alumni work in every major studio, including Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, where alumnus Rebecca Sugar became the channel’s first female solo show creator with her acclaimed series, Steven Universe. SVA filmmakers, cinematographers, editors and writers can be found throughout the film and television industry, and include directors Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game, Passengers) and Gillian Robespierre, writer and director of the feature Landline, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2017 and was subsequently acquired by Amazon.