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2008 Mountainfilm awards

We are pleased to announce the Telluride Mountainfilm 2008 award winners:

The Mountainfilm Prize

Free the Slaves (an organization associated with festival programming)

The Audience Award

Red Gold

The Charlie Fowler Award

King Lines

The Festival Director's Award

Red Gold

Aspiring Filmmaker's Award

Throw Down Your Heart

Kidz Kino Awards

Best Nature Film:
Once Upon a Tide

Best Cartoon:
Cat Man Do

Funniest Film:
Sid

Best Cultural Film:
Shikashika

Most Inspiring Film:
The King Of Telluride

AWARDS:

The Mountainfilm Prize - $5,000

This $5,000 cash prize goes to one of the nonprofits or real-life heroes featured in a film, presentation or gallery exhibit at this year’s festival. Because everyone deserves our appreciation and support, just being eligible for the Mountainfilm Prize entitles each of them to $300 cash.

If you’re moved by what you see in these Mountainfilm Prize nominees and want to increase the prize pool, grab your cellphone. Text to Give is a cutting-edge technology that allows you to contribute simply by texting 90999, keyword mtfilm. Each $5 contribution (feel free to text more than once) will go directly into the general prize pool and help bump the amount we can reward these worthy causes. If you don’t know how to text, ask a volunteer—preferably someone born after 1980.

Click here for a list of the amazing people and organizations who are eligible, and here for a list of the judges who will have the near-impossible job of deciding the winner.

The Audience Award - $1,000

Some distributors think the audience award is a much better harbinger of success for a film than a juried award. Please vote for the Audience Award (by secret ballot at the Closing Picnic and Awards Ceremony). Remember, voting helps ensure a productive and thriving democracy and, if nothing else, assists the filmmaker with a prize of $1,000.

The Charlie Fowler Award - $1,000

Charlie was a mainstay of Mountainfilm for many years, and while we miss him terribly, we find some comfort in knowing his presence is with us for this award. The judges will try their best to discern which mountaineering or climbing film Charlie would have liked most for this $1,000 prize.

Aspiring Filmmaker’s Award - $500

A panel of student filmmakers from Telluride and beyond decide this $500 prize, and Mountainfilm staff determines which films are eligible.

The Festival Director’s Award - $500

It’s unlikely any distributors care about this award. It’s totally arbitrary (and certainly not democratic), but at least it’s completely transparent. This $500 prize goes to a film that David Holbrooke has chosen from this year’s program.

Award Artist

The Mountainfilm Awards were designed and created by the extremely talented glassblower, Luke Gilvey. Luke and his family own a glass gallery in Beacon, New York, called Hudson Beach Glass (www.hudsonbeachglass.com). They’re nice people. Go in and say “hello” if you find yourself in Beacon. You can watch them make glass, and there’s a great bakery across the street and a small, but killer, outdoor gear store around the corner.

Mountainfilm Prize Nominees

These eight nonprofit organizations—groups associated with programming in the festival this year—are nominated for the Mountainfilm Prize. Each organization will receive $300, and the grand prize winner collects $5,000.

Biodiesel America
(Fields of Fuel: film)

Eden Again
(Azzam Alwash: presentation)

Elephant Nature Park
(Losing the Elephants: film)

Free the Slaves
(Contemporary Slavery: presentation; Dreams Die Hard: film)

Glen Canyon Institute
(Drowning River: film & In Depth)

Grupo Cultural Baguncaco
(Alagados: film; gallery)

Tara Llanes Heart of a Champion Road to Recovery Fund
(Tara Llanes & Anne Keller: presentation; gallery)

Trout Unlimited
(Red Gold film)