Meet the three jurors selected for the 58th Ann Arbor Film Festival
Ann Arbor —The Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) is pleased to announce the selection of three esteemed jurors for the 58th Ann Arbor Film Festival, scheduled for March 24–29, 2020. The judges are: Osbert Parker, Lisa Steele, and Lynne Sachs. The three will attend the six-day festival, viewing more than 120 films in competition and awarding roughly $22,500 in cash and in-kind awards. In addition, each juror will present a specially curated program of work during the festival.
Osbert Parker
Three-time BAFTA-nominated director Osbert Parker is perhaps best known for his signature style of using cut-out animation mixed with live-action to create one-of-a-kind imaginary landscapes within commercials and short films. He directed eight short films for the Channel 4 series Misfits (2012) and co-directed (with Laurie Hill) the short film Sir John Lubbock’s Pet Wasp (2018) for Instagram, based on Untold Stories, commissioned by animate projects and Anim18. As a freelance director, Parker worked at Quentin Tarantino’s production company, A Band Apart, as its first commercial director in 1995 and as Steve Barron’s second unit director on Hallmark’s TV feature Arabian Nights.
Parker’s short films have received great acclaim on the international film festival circuit. Film Noir was nominated for best short animated film by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in 2006 and was also nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Yours Truly, was awarded Best Short Animated Film at the British Animation Awards.
Lisa Steele
Lisa Steele is a pioneer in video art, educator, curator, and co-founder of the Toronto-based organization Vtape, an award-winning media center and distributor of video art. She has collaborated with her partner Kim Tomczak since 1983 in producing videotapes, performances, and photo/text works. Their awards include the Bell Canada Award in Video Art, a Toronto Arts Award for media arts, and in 2005, a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. Currently, Steele teaches at the University of Toronto as part of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.
Lynne Sachs
Lynne Sachs makes films, installations, performances, and web projects that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics, and layered sound design. Between 1994 and 2009, her five essay films took her to Vietnam, Bosnia, Israel, Italy and Germany – sites affected by international war – where she looked at the space between a community’s collective memory and her own subjective perceptions. Sachs has made 35 films, which have screened at the New York Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney.
Lynne studied history and studio art at Brown University and studied film at both the San Francisco Art Institute and San Francisco State University. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches experimental and documentary film. In 2014, Lynne received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Film and Video.
About the Ann Arbor Film Festival
Founded in 1963, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest independent and experimental film festival in North America and is internationally recognized as a premier forum for film as an art form. The AAFF typically receives nearly 3,000 film submissions a year from more than 70 countries, and the festival serves as one of a handful of Academy Award–qualifying festivals in the United States. The AAFF is also a pioneer of the traveling film festival tour. Each year the touring programs visit more than 35 theaters, universities, museums, and micro cinemas around the world. The 58th Ann Arbor Film Festival takes place March 24-29, 2020. For more information, please visit aafilmfest.org, and be sure to join AAFF on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vimeo.
Major AAFF Partners and Foundation Support
AAFF gratefully acknowledges support from and partnerships with the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, which encourages, initiates, and facilitates an enriched artistic cultural and creative environment in Michigan; the Michigan Film and Digital Media Office, which supports the media industry in Michigan and helps the state of Michigan become a production destination; the historic Michigan Theater, a vital partner whose beautiful venue serves as the primary location for AAFF events; the National Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation; and the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, with a mission focused on creative practice as an engine for cultural change and innovation.
