Fargo Film Festival Announces Official Selections and Category Winners for 20th Fest

BY SCOTTIE KNOLLIN

The Fargo Film Festival announced, today, the official selections and category winners for the upcoming 20th Fargo Film Festival event. Winners include Floor Adams’ Mind My Mind, Davy Rothbart’s 17 Blocks, Darren Durlach and David Larson’s R.A.W. Tuba, Lingyun Zheng’s Blooming, Ben Lawrence’s Hearts and Bones, Marshall Curry’s The Neighbors’ Window, and Justin Daering’s Progeny.

The winning films will join official selections and honorable mentions during in screening at the 20th Fargo Film Festival, set to run March 17-20, 2020, at various locations in the Fargo-Moorhead community, including the famed Fargo Theatre in downtown Fargo, North Dakota. Other special screenings of classic films and other events will fill the multi-day fest schedule.

The Fargo Film Festival held its first event in March 2000 to coincide with the 2000 Library of Congress Film Preservation Tour. Screenings at the inaugural fest included classics from the Library of Congress collection, as well as attendance by prominent members of the film industry, like actor Janet Leigh.

Juries help determine category winners, official selections, and honorable mentions from a submission pool that average 300 submissions each year by filmmakers from diverse backgrounds. Since it began, the Fargo Film Festival has featured works by directors from over 35 states and 20 countries.

Categories include Animation, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short, Experimental, Narrative Feature, Narrative Short, and Student.

Awards for Best in Show are given to the overall Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematographer, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay winners at the end of the festival.

For more information, or to purchase tickets to the 20th Fargo Film Festival (available soon), click here.

ANIMATION
Winner: Mind My Mind; Dir. Floor Adams
Honorable Mention: Girl in the Hallway; Dir. Valerie Barnhart
Honorable Mention: The Kite; Dir. Martin Smatana

Official Selections
Big Wolf and Little Wolf; Dir. Remi Durin
The Bird and the Whale; Dir. Carol Freeman
Coaster; Dir. Amos Sussigan
Daughter; Dir. Daria Kashcheeva
Don’t Feed These Animals; Dirs. Guilherme Afonso, Miguel Madaíl de Freitas
Flower Found!; Dir. Jorn Leeuwerink
Flowing Through Wonder; Dir. Joanna Lurie
The Fox and the Bird; Dirs. Fred Guillaume, Sam Guillaume
Guaxuma; Dir. Nara Normande
Hors Piste; Dirs. Léo Brunel, Loris Cavalier, Camille Jalabert, Oscar Malet
The Lonely Orbit; Dirs. Benjamin Morard, Frederic Siegel
Racing the Sunset; Dir. Nikolas Smith
Sister; Dir. Siqi Song
Symbiosis; Dir. Nadja Andrasev
Two; Dir. Emre Okten
Wild Love; Dirs. Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner: 17 Blocks; Dir. Davy Rothbart
Honorable Mention: Balkowitsch; Dirs. Chelsy Ciaverella, Gregory DeSaye

Official Selections
Breaking Out; Dir. Michael McCormack
Changing the Game; Dir. Michael Barnett
Decoding the Driftless; Dir. Jonas Stenstrom
False Confessions; Dir. Katrine Philp
Prey; Dir. Matt Gallagher
The Pollinators; Dir. Peter Nelson
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street; Dirs. Roman Chimienti, Tyler Jensen

DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Winner: R.A.W. Tuba; Dirs. Darren Durlach, David Larson
Honorable Mention: 25 Texans in the Land of Lincoln; Dir. Ellen Brodsky

Official Selections
Everything You Wanted to Know About Sudden Birth (But Were Afraid to Ask); Dir. Scott Calonico
The Iron Grandmother; Dir. Emily Sheskin
The Litas; Dir. William Desena
The Traffic Separating Device; Dir. Johan Palmgren
Undue Burdens; Dir. Andrea Raby

EXPERIMENTAL
Winner: Blooming; Dir. Lingyun Zheng
Honorable Mention: Chairs; Dir. Avner Pinchover

Official Selections
Patron; Dirs. Emily Haigh, Alon Young
Spring II; Dir. Ed Carter

NARRATIVE FEATURE
Winner: Hearts and Bones; Dir. Ben Lawrence
Honorable Mention: International Falls; Dir. Amber McGinnis
Honorable Mention: The Planters; Dirs. Alexandra Kotcheff, Hannah Leder

Official Selections
Alice; Dir. Joshephine Mackerras
Book Week; Heath Davis
The Garden Left Behind; Dir. Flavio Alves
Lost Bayou; Dir. Brian C. Miller Richard
Red Rover; Dir. Shane Belcourt
Saint Frances; Dir. Alex Thompson
The Wretched; Dirs. Brett Pierce, Drew Pierce

NARRATIVE SHORT
Winner: The Neighbors’ Window; Dir. Marshall Curry
Honorable Mention: Brotherhood; Dir. Meryam Joobeur

Official Selections
Anna Karenina; Dir. Yana Sar
Aziza; Dir. Soudade Kaadan
Butterfly; Dir. Bonnie Foster
Change; Dir. Alec Holland
The Christmas Gift; Dir. Bogdan Muresanu
Dead Animals; Dirs. David Oesch, Remo Rickenbacher
Distinguished Feelings; Dir. Keren Marciano
Extra Innings; Dir. John Gray
The Field; Dir. Sandhya Suri
Floating; Dir. Frankie De Leonardis
Green; Dir. Suzanne Andrews Correa
The Inuring; Dir. James Hughes
Kanari; Dir. Erlendur Sveinsson
King Wah (I Think I Love You); Dir. Horatio Baltz
Let Mercy Come; Dir. Andrew Serban
Made Public; Dir. Foster Wilson
The Minors; Dir. Robert Machoian
Moving Day; Dir. Regev Berkovitz
Nefta Football Club; Dir. Yves Piat
Norm; Dir. Amanda Kaye
Peggy; Dir. Justin O’Neal Miller
Sometimes, I Think About Dying; Dir. Stefanie Abel Horowitz
Unkept; Dir. Michael P. Vidler
Unleashed; Dir. Jonathan Levy

STUDENT
Winner: Progeny; Dir. Justin Daering
Honorable Mention: Florence; Dir. Emanuele Daga

Official Selections
Bird of Paradise; Dir. Alexander Zorn
Blueberry; Dir. Martina Lee
Fraser Syndrome and Me; Dir. Kyle Anne Grendys
Ghazaal; Dir. Ragini Bhasin
In My Eyes; Dir. Vincent Dorazio
Jack and Anna; Dir. Ksenia Ivanova
Moonwalk with Me; Dir. So Young Shelly Yo
Reverb; Dir. Arsal Asal
A Sidewalk Becomes a Street; Dir. Chris Lee
Tuesday; Dir. Margo E. Sawaya

The program art for the 20th Fargo Film Festival was designed by Fargo-based artist, Punchgut, who designed the festival’s 2009 artwork.