In its fourth year as Indy’s alternative to the Heartland Film Festival, a much larger film festival devoted exclusively to positive and inspiring films, the Indianapolis International Film Festival (IIFF) wrapped things up at an awards ceremony held at the Stutz Center in downtown followed by a weekend showing of several of the festival’s big winners.

IIFF, an all-volunteer film festival founded by Brian Owens, featured 191 films from around the world this year and, while the final tally is not yet in, it looks as if attendance will rise 15-20% this year with screenings held at Keystone Art Cinema on Indy’s Northside, Key Cinema on the city’s Southside and the centrally located Herron School of Art.

At the awards ceremony, films were recognized in the following categories:

American Spectrum (American-made films)

Grand Jury Prize, Feature Film: Adrift in Manhattan

Grand Jury Prize, Short Film: Pop Foul

Special Jury Prizes awarded to:

Cinematographer Wolfgang Held for the film Disappearances

Films: Kidney Thieves and Nevel is the Devil

Real Visions (Documentary Films)

Grand Jury Prize, Feature Film: Rain in a Dry Land

Grand Jury Prize, Short Film: Angel’s Fire

Special Jury Prize, Feature: Bridge Over Wadi

Special Jury Prize, Short: Heavy Metal, Jr.

Special Jury Prize for Direction: Marie-Josee Sainte-Pierre for “McLaren’s Negatives”

World Cinema (Foreign Films)

Grand Jury Prize, Feature Film: Fraulein

Grand Jury Prize, Short: Eramos Pocos

Special Jury Prize for Performance: The cast of Thicker than Water

Special Jury Prize for Music: Milk and Opium

Hoosier Lens (Indiana Filmmakers)

Grand Jury Prize: Marrying God, Produced by Hoosier Erika Yancey

Additional awards:

1st Annual Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Prize for Science Fiction Filmmaking:

First on the Moon, directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko

Excellence in Animation Award

Everything Will be Okay, directed by Don Hurtzfeldt

Finally,

Audience Award, Feature Film: (Tie) Waitress
Speed Dating

Audience Award, Short Film: The Substitute

Audience Award, Documentary: In the Shadow of the Moon