Planet in Focus: International Environmental Film & Video Festival Announces its 2005 Award Winners!

Toronto, ON October 10, 2005

Planet in Focus: International Environmental Film & Video Festival is pleased to announce the Award winners for 2005. There were 79 films in total at this year’s festival.

The Best International Short Form award went to: Nome Road System by German filmmaker Rainer Komers. It is an enigmatic journey along the Nome Road System in Alaska shot with powerful evocative imagery, stark ambient sounds in astrange, dreamlike world.

The Best International Long Form award went to Switch Off by Spanish filmmaker Manel Mayol. A feature about the world’s third largest dam along the BioBio river in Chile, Switch Off is an elegant and angry epistle against ENDESA, the Spanish hydro-electrical company behind the dam.

The Best Canadian Short Form award was presented to Toronto local filmmaker Jeff Sterne for Car Culture. Considered a Godardian neurotic, therapy drunk, angry cousin of Stephen King’s Christine, it is a romp through Toronto’s mean streets accompanied by a live sound track at the screenings.

The Best Canadian Long Form went to Giséle Gordon’s unforgettable docu-journey The Tunguska Project following Cree playwright and artist Floyd Favel as he travels from Saskatchewan to Siberia to find meaning in an ancient explosion.

The festival which took place September 28 to October 2nd also presented its traditional PIF awards: the 2005 Eco-Hero Industry Award went to Alanis Obomsawin, OC, Canada’s veteran native filmmaker known for her remarkable career documenting the stories of Aboriginal People in Canada with a particular view to the environments, traditions, struggles and determination of Canada’s First Nations People.

Additionally, the festival awarded posthumously the 2005 Eco-Hero Community Award to Bob Hunter - In Memoriam. The award was accepted by his son Will Hunter at the awards ceremony

A new award in honour of festival founder and former director, Mark Haslam was presented this year. The Mark Haslam Award was given to Children of the Mountains – by Philippino filmmakers Jukka Holopainen, Marge Babon and American Boyd Pickup. The film is about one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes in the world, the Agta of the Philippines. The award was presented to a work that gives voice to individuals, communities, struggles or stories that are under-represented in the media and that are made by a filmmaker who is a member or participant in that community struggle or story.

Planet in Focus had its most successful season this year and congratulates all of its 2005 award winners.

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For more information, contact:

For information contact:
Dara Rowland, Dara Rowland & Associates
416 916 7377
www.dararowlandassociates.com

Anne Mark
Planet in Focus
416 531 1769
www.planetinfocus.org