23rd annual Sedona Film Festival held February 18-26, 2017, award winners include John Paul DeJoria and Cloris Leachman among others
Sedona AZ (February 26, 2017) – Good Fortune, the rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story of one of the world’s most celebrated entrepreneurs, John Paul DeJoria, founder of Paul Mitchell Professional Hair Products and Patron tequila, won the Best of Fest Award at the 23rd annual Sedona International Film Festival.
Good Fortune, the Audience Choice Award for both Best of Fest and Best Documentary, tells the story of DeJoria, the son of Greek immigrants and a pioneer of “conscious capitalism” who uses his business to make the world a better place. DeJoria also received the Sedona International Film Festival Global Humanitarian and Philanthropist Award.
A Plastic Ocean, a full-length documentary exploring the fragile state of our oceans and the alarming truth about plastic pollution, which was named the Director’s Choice for Best Documentary Film, also won the Audience Award for Best Environmental film.
Blood & Glory, an inspired-by-real-events narrative feature about a South African man whose character exceeds his imagination, and Wild Prairie Rose, the story of a woman who returns to her rural hometown to care for her ailing mother and falls in love with a deaf man, tied for Best Feature Drama.
Grand Unified Theory, a Canadian narrative feature about a brilliant astrophysicist’s family whose meltdown sets in motion a hilarious series of events that mirror his radical theories of the behavior of the universe, was named Best Feature Comedy.
Slipaway, a narrative feature that tells the story of an eclectic elder with good intentions, but extreme measures, received the Heart of the Festival Award.
Also during the festival, Cloris Leachman received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Other Audience Choice Award winners were:
• Best Foreign Film: Under the Same Sun
• Animated Film: Wabooz
• Student Short: A Children’s Song
• Short Film – Drama: All The Marbles
• Short Film – Comedy: Rated
• Documentary Short: Edges
The full list of Director’s Choice and Audience Choice Awards includes:
2017 AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS
Best of Fest: Good Fortune
Best Feature Comedy: Grand Unified Theory
Best Feature Drama: (TIE) Blood & Glory and Wild Prairie Rose
Best Foreign Film: Under the Same Sun
Animated Film: Wabooz
Student Short: A Children’s Song
Short Film – Drama: All The Marbles
Short Film – Comedy: Rated
Environmental: A Plastic Ocean
Documentary: Good Fortune
Documentary Short: Edges
Heart of the Festival Award: Slipaway
2017 SPECIAL FESTIVAL AWARDS
Lifetime Achievement: Cloris Leachman
Global Humanitarian and Philanthropist: John Paul DeJoria
2017 DIRECTORS’ CHOICE AWARDS
Best Animated Film: Curpigeon
Best Short Film: The Train
Best Student Short Film: Icarus
Best Documentary Feature: A Plastic Ocean
Best Short Documentary: Joshua Tree: Threatened Wonderland
Best Environmental Film: Death By Design
Best Foreign Film: Frantz
Best Feature DRAMA: The Sandbox
Best Feature COMEDY: Burn Burn Burn
Best Humanitarian Film (narrative): Under the Same Sun
Best Humanitarian Film (documentary): No Limits
Best Independent Spirit (narrative): Halfway to Zen
Best Independent Spirit (documentary): Perfume War
Best Independent Spirit (short): Bardo
Bill Muller Excellence in Screenwriting Award: 29+1
Marion Herrman Excellence in Filmmaking: SCORE: A Film Music Documentary
For more information, visit www.sedonafilmfestival.com.
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It was a good festival & organized. We’ll be back to Sedona in the near future.
Attention Hollywood celebrities,
It’s time to wake up now. Get this!
The only reason you exist is for my entertainment. Some of you are beautiful. Some of you can deliver a line with such conviction that you bring tears to my eyes. Some of you are so convincing that you scare the crap out of me. And others are so funny you can make me laugh uncontrollably. And others make music that makes my toe tap and my body sway.
But you all have one thing in common. You only exist and have a place in my world to entertain me. That’s it. Nothing else!
You make your living pretending to be someone else, reading someone else’s words. You play dress-up like a 5-year-old. Your world is a make believe world. It is not real. It doesn’t exist. You live for the camera and microphone, while the rest of us live in the real world. Your entire existence depends on my patronage. I crank the organ grinder, and you dance.
Therefore, I don’t care where you stand on issues. Honestly, your opinion means nothing to me.
Just because you had a lead role in a movie about prostitution doesn’t mean you know what it’s like to be a prostitute. Because you show a breast at a halftime football show while singing off key, doesn’t make you a world spokesperson. Your views matter not to me.
Believe me or not, the hard truth is that you aren’t real.
I turn off my TV or shut down my computer or turn off my radio, and you cease to exist. Once I am done with you, I go back to the real world until I want you to entertain me again.
I don’t care that you think BP executives deserve the death penalty. I don’t care what you think about the environment. I don’t care if you believe fracking is bad. I don’t care if you call for more gun control. I don’t care if you do or don’t like Trump or Clinton. I don’t care if you believe human-induced global warming or whether it’s cyclical.
And I could care less that you support Hillary or the Donald for President. Get back into your bubble. I’ll let you know when I’m in the mood for something pretty or scary or funny.
And if you want to open the doors to illegal immigrants, please, let’s first open the gates to your fabulous mansion in Hollywood or whatever other elitist neighborhood you are residing in this week. How many empty guest rooms do you have??
And one other thing.
What was with all this “I’ll leave the country if Donald Trump wins”? Don’t you know how stupid that made you sound? What did you think the reaction was going to be? It was NOT – I better not vote for Trump or we’ll lose Whoopi Goldberg? Al Sharpton? Amy Schumer? Bruce Springsteen? or Barbara Streisand? And several more.
Leave already. I don’t care! And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Oh by the way, is Clinton returning any of the money you so generously donated to her election? And how proud she made you when her meltdown went viral – no pulling up big girl panties with that woman and don’t ever give her a big red Easy button when she loses.
Make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me sing. Even scare me. But realize this, the only words of yours that matter are scripted. I may agree with some of you from time to time, but in the final analysis, you and it doesn’t matter. In my world, you exist solely for my entertainment.
Stick to the scripts. In fact I may not watch or listen to you high-paid narcissistic, egotistic, self-serving, lame-brained half wits anymore just because you cannot go off-script without ruining my entertainment. Got it?
My word I had no idea there’d be such a chilled out scene there! Maybe I am just going to have to live vicariously through your adventures from this side of the pond.
To Ken in Cottonwood – couldn’t agree more with your suggestions. And to go even further they might well apply to those holding elected office that seem to think they were deemed omnipotent and what “they” think is far more important than voices from the public. “I think” has become the standard phrase. Tried counting the times spoken at one council meeting and it soon became mission impossible. “I”, “i”, “me, me, me” – Oh, how they love to laud praise to their self-dictated appointments. Wish they, too, would leave the country and take their inflated egos and stupid ideas with them.