New Mexico Film Office Announces Winners of the 2009 NM Filmmakers Showcase
Contact: Trish Lopez at (505) 476-5611; trish@nmfilm.comSANTA FE—Lisa Strout, Director of the New Mexico Film Office and Trish Lopez, New Mexico Filmmakers Program Director, today congratulated all winners of this year’s 2009 New Mexico Filmmakers Showcase. Over 70 local filmmakers submitted their work to this annual four-day event, which took place May 14-17 at the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque. Local filmmakers and the public had the opportunity to submit any original film and attend any of the screenings at no cost.
“We are extremely proud of our talented filmmakers and crew in this state and we hope they will continue making wonderful films for all to see. This Showcase is one of the ways we can do our part to bring their work to a wider audience,” said Lisa Strout. Winners were announced in the following seven (7) categories: Best Comedy Short Film: Preschool’s a Bit** by Christopher Boone Best Documentary Short Film: Abraham Lincoln: The One Sided Story by Jessie Weahkee Best Documentary Feature Film: A Shmal World by Michelle Friedline & Laureen Ricks Best Drama Short Film: In the Wake by Craig Strong Best Drama Feature Film: Price of the American Dream II (Lean Like a Gangster) by Michael Amundsen Best Horror/Sci-Fi Film: The Sitter by Kim Liphardt Best “Wildcard” Film: Vancouver by Bryan Konefsky “The Showcase is a great opportunity for all New Mexicans to see their work on the big screen and bring their family and friends to join them. It’s one of our favorite events and we are very thankful to our five judges who helped us this year,” said Trish Lopez. In previous Showcase years, a category for “audience favorite” took place in the form of anonymous ballots by showcase attendees who selected winners. This year, the New Mexico Film Office changed to a juried format and recruited a diverse panel of judges to accommodate filmmakers and others in far corners of the state that often cannot attend their screenings to vote. Below are names and bios of the five judges who participated in this year’s Showcase. (Listed in alphabetical order): Hakim Bellamy Hakim Bellamy is the Social and Community Outreach Coordinator at the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs. In this capacity, he acts as a Film Liaison via the OAAA’s partnerships with various film & media agencies. With a background in television, radio news & media production, he also has a handful of screen and stage appearances to his credit, and is a two-time National Champion in the Poetry Slam scene. His poetry has been published in Albuquerque inner-city buses as a winner of the RouteWords Competition, as well as the Harwood Anthology, the Earthships Anthology, Sin Fronteras Journal, A Bigger Boat published by UNM Press and Looking Back at Place. In January of 2007, Bellamy was recognized as an honorable mention for the UNM Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize for his work as a community organizer and journalist. He regularly works with many youth poets via presentations at schools, non-profits and community organizations across New Mexico. William (Billy) Garberina Billy Garberina has been involved in the Albuquerque acting scene since attending Albuquerque High School in the early '90's. He received his BFA in acting from UNM in 1998. He lived in NYC for four months and in Los Angeles for one year before moving back to ABQ in late 1999 to make feature length independent cinema. In the last ten years, he has starred in, produced and directed over 20 features including The Stink of Flesh, Feeding the Masses, The Wedding Slashers, Gimme Skelter and Necroville. He has been involved in independent production features ranging from upstate New York to New York City, Wisconsin, Los Angeles, New Mexico, Iowa, North Carolina and beyond. Last Year, Garberina had four features distributed in wide release on DVD: Wet Heat, Ski Wolf, Gimme Skelter, and the award-winning Necroville. Necroville achieved the award for Best New Mexico Film at the 2007 Santa Fe Film Festival. His production company, C.R. Productions, is committed to its successful history of completing and acquiring distribution for entertaining low budget feature length cinema made in the State of New Mexico. C.R. Productions is a fully autonomous production team home grown in New Mexico which utilizes an all above-the-line New Mexican team in all of its projects. Cynthia Jeannette Gómez Native New Mexican Filmmaker, Cynthia Jeannette Gómez, owns and operates Pipestone Productions, an independent film and audio production company. She began producing in 1988 as a volunteer at the University of New Mexico’s KUNM public radio station with a ‘women of color’ collaborative, Voces Feministas. She expanded into the public access television field and since then has been producing documentary film. Gómez began producing documentary videos for the City of Albuquerque’s Cultural Affairs Office in 1994. Most recently, she produced Electronic Media for the National Association of Latino Producers’ annual Producers Academy in 2008. In recent months she discovered a niche in music video production with local musicians and performance artists. Gómez is a documentary photographer and videographer currently working on a project with the National Park Services in Northern New Mexico to be completed in 2009. She is also a writer, poet and researcher and collector of oral history since 1990. Her education includes a Masters of Arts from UNM College of Education and from UNM American Studies Dept. as well as a UNM Bachelor of University Studies. Dr. Sina Soul Sina-Aurelia Pleasant-Soul is a SocioEthnomusicologist, Filmmaker, Writer, Educator and Performing Artist specializing in the diasporic indigenous roots of Hip Hop culture as chronicled through African rhythm, Latino-Brazilian movement, Gospel, Blues and American Jazz. She conducts international workshops and lectures in conjuntion with her musical tour, FROM AFRICAN CROP TO BEBOP TO HIP HOP ©®™2009; which depicts the cross-cultural hybridization of rhythm and sound. Soul has conducted Hip Hop culture workshops for youth at all 19 Native American Pueblos and the 3 Reservations in New Mexico. As a young NM transplant, she captured the State, National and International Journalism Excellence Association High School Journalist Awards, the State Title in Track & Field at La Cueva HS, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship, the Gardenschwartz Sports Athlete of the Year Award, the Presidential Academic Achievement Award, the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge’s 1st Collegiate Scholarship, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Debutante Scholarship and was the 1st African American NM Girls State Governor and the 1st African American Miss Teen Albuquerque USA. While at Brown University, under the tutelage of Michael Eric Dyson (Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line), Elmo Terry-Morgan (Heart to Heart: Ain't Your Life Worth Saving?), Aisha Rahman (Unfinished Women..), Ntzoke Shange (For Colored Girls..., Rhode Island Poet Laureate Michael Harper (Every Shuteye Ain't Asleep) and A.E.Hotchner (Papa Hemingway), she crafted her creative writing, poetry and screenwriting skills and authored the creative works: Black & Blue at Brown, Soliloquy XX and Orisha. Her full-length feature screenplays include Freedom in Exile: Assata Shakur, La Reina Canta: The Life of Celia Cruz, La Envidia and L'Noir. Her short films include: Sudar, The Keys, Madd As Saddam, Modern Day Slave Trade, B-Grrlz and My Father Was a 33rd degree Mason. Soul works in the actor, script supervisor, composer and director capacities in the NM Film industry. Soul pioneered the creation of The Providence Black Repertory Company under the direction of Donald W. King. Her theatrical and musical works have been produced and performed at stages throughout the nation including George Houston Bass' Rites & Reason Theater, Trinity Repertory Theater, Perishable Theater and The Blue Note (NYC). She has starred in the premiere theatrical works of Nilo Cruz and Paula Vogel, in Broadway's The Lion King and Off Broadway's Stomp! and toured with George Clinton, Erykah Badu, The Roots and Urban Bush Women. She continues to live, teach, perform and write in New Mexico. Soul is the mother of two boys, Solomon Apiliato & Justus Ramses Vailoa, and the wife of Jazzmaster/Producer Rodney Bowe. ©2009 by Gregory Schmocke Raquel Troyce Raquel Troyce was born in Guadalajara, México. She studied Law at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City as well as Sexology and Sexual Education at the Mexican Institute of Sexology. As an on-line advisor on sexual relationships, she created the first virtual adult forum (in Spanish) for a major internet company. She also studied Hebrew and Jewish Traditions for two years in Israel. Now an American citizen living in New Mexico, Raquel is the founder of Valentino Press, a regular contributor of articles in both Spanish and English languages to on-line and conventional print publications, and is often a guest speaker at writers’ conferences. Her works include the non-fiction book Seducción, Amor y Mentiras, and the award-winning article, “I Had My Daughter Deported So She Could Stay”, which she is currently developing into a screenplay. Raquel studied screenwriting at the New Mexico Filmmaking Intensive Program (NMFI), College of Santa Fe and was the writer of the recently produced New Mexican-made short film, American Dream. The NM Filmmakers Showcase takes place each Spring, and is announced through the Governor’s Office and the Film Office website (www.nmfilm.com).
