The prestigious Camden International Film Festival in Maine has wrapped its 21st edition after presenting jury and audience awards.
Always (从来), directed by Deming Chen and produced by Hansen Lin, won the festival’s Harrell Award, the feature documentary’s third major honor after winning the DOX:Award at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen and the editing award at DocsBarcelona. The film, which is built around poems written by 8-year-old Youbin Gong and his fellow schoolmates in a rural, mountainous part of China’s Hunan province, screens at the BFI London Film Festival in October.
The jury, comprised of Genevieve Carmel, Faridah Gbadamosi and Bob Moore, called the film “a breathtaking and deeply cinematic portrait of a boy and his family living in a small village in Hunan Province, expressing himself through poetry against the backdrop of both repression and abandonment. The poetry of the boy and his classmates emerges as a testament to the radical and still fleeting role that art and personal expression can play in the life of a child living under some of the most difficult of circumstances, to make sense of and to speak back to the world around him.”
Chen, who is based in China, attended CIFF along with Lin, who is based in New York. The director was overcome with emotion after learning of his Harrell Award win.
“We have tried to submit our project to many foundations. We filled out a lot of grant applications… We got a lot of rejections,” Deming said, his words translated from Chinese by Lin. “The rejections make us doubt if we can really make a film.”
The jury awarded a special mention to Les Voyageurs (The Travelers), directed by David Bingong. “The filmmaker’s audacious and life-affirming account of his and his fellow travelers’ experiences along the border between Morocco and Spain left a deep impression with us as the jury,” Carmel, Gbadamosi and Moore wrote. “Their unrelenting optimism is highlighted by their exuberant songs.”
CIFF’s Cinematic Vision Award went to Evidence, directed by Lee Anne Schmitt, a film in which Schmitt examines her father’s work for an influential conservative think tank founded by the head of a chemicals and munitions company.
The jury, comprised of Marlene Edoyan, Kiyoko McCrae and Maya E. Rudolph, wrote, “Through a masterful interplay of intimate memory, archival material and evocative 16mm imagery, this film weaves the personal into the political, revealing the subtle yet profound ways ideology permeates everyday life. Its nuanced approach transforms recollections of family, childhood and the natural world into a lens on identity, care and cultural complicity, offering insight into the structures that shape how we live, think and relate. With resonant formal choices, meticulous research and a deeply personal perspective, this essay documentary turns evidence into reflection, offering clarity, urgency and insight.”
Sky Hopinka’s Powwow People earned a Special Mention from the jury, which wrote, “With experimental precision, immersive long takes and an intimate focus on intergenerational voices, this work celebrates Indigenous culture, memory and motion while reshaping how we witness community on screen. By orchestrating the event he films, the filmmaker dissolves the boundaries between observer and participant, transforming documentary into a living, breathing experience.”
CIFF’s audience award, renamed this year to the Fowlie Award in honor of festival founder Ben Fowlie, was earned by Unless Something Goes Terribly Wrong, which held its world premiere at CIFF. The film directed by Kaitlyn Schwalje and Alex Wolf Lewis blends humor with revelatory detail to explore the staff and operations of a wastewater treatment plant located next to a park in Portland, Maine.
Unless Something Goes Terribly Wrong was developed during the 2023 LEF/CIFF Fellowship, a program of the Points North Institute which puts on the Camden International Film Festival. The film’s production team is from Portland.
“It is a thrill to present the inaugural Fowlie Award to Kaitlyn, Alex and team after their electrifying premiere screening of their hilarious and timely film about wastewater management,” said Points North’s co-founder and Artistic Director Sean Flynn. “This award honors Ben’s vision for building community through a hometown film festival with global reach, so it feels particularly poignant that the first recipient is a homegrown, Maine-made film that we know will make an impact nationally and start urgent conversations about labor and public service.”
Shorts Award
CIFF’s Best Documentary Short Film Award went to Their Eyes, directed by Nicolas Gourault and produced by Yannick Beauquis and Quentin Brayer. The win qualifies the short for Academy Award consideration.
“By decoding images, Their Eyes examines the invisible human labor behind modern technology,” jurors Enrique Pedráza Botero, Jeff Seelbach and Danielle Varga wrote. “The jury was transfixed by its expansive and deliberate approach, and its distressing implications for the future.”
Points North Pitch Award
“One of the most popular events at the festival,” notes a release, “the Points North Pitch is part of the Points North Fellowship, a filmmaker development program supporting six feature documentaries in development, presented by The deNovo Initiative.
“The pitch award was re-imagined this year to honor all of the films and filmmaking teams collectively — shifting from a spirit of competition to one of celebration, recognizing each project for its extraordinary potential and connecting each of our teams with resources and mentorship that will help advance their projects.”
CIFF added, “An impressive group of individuals and organizations generously donated both goods and services” which will be divided between the teams:
— Modulus Studios offered in-kind post-production services valued at $10,000.
— The North Face provided a generous package of gear and outerwear for one of our teams valued at $2,500.
— Peak Design provided a camera support package for each film team valued at $1,600.
— Jacob Burns Film Center offered a creative residency for filmmakers actively working on a film project.
— Multitude Films is offering producing consultations over the course of one year.
— DCTV is offering their post-production and exhibition spaces, including the Firehouse Cinema in New York.
— Caitlin Boyle is a distribution and social impact consultant who is providing distribution and social impact consultation for one of our film teams.
— UCLA Doc Legal Clinic will provide legal consultations on the subjects of production legal and content counseling.
—Additionally, the filmmaking teams will receive accreditation to the following film festivals: BlackStar Film Festival, Big Sky Film Festival, DOC NYC, IDFA, CPH:DOX and Sheffield DocFest.
The film projects selected for these awards are:
— Futureproof by John Hulsey and Philip Cartelli
— God Lives Here by Samiran Deka
— Home Movie by Anu Czerwinski and Anna Stylinska
— How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps by Carolina Gonzalez Valencia and Brenda Avila-Hanna
—Yosi by Jimmy Goldblum, Justin A. Gonçalves and Vero Kompalic
— Untitled Watermelon Pictures Project
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