Ryan Stevens Harris’ Moon Garden, the story of a comatose young girl who must follow her mother’s voice through a transistor radio to escape a surreal industrial wonderland, won Best Feature Film and five other awards at FilmQuest – the Provo, Utah film festival that celebrates the best of genre film.
The festival, led by unflaggingly energetic and supportive founder and director Jonathan Martin, was held from October 28 through November 5 in Provo, a town that feels wholesome and subversive at the same time. FilmQuest’s venue, the ornately beautiful and velvety cool Velour, played films full of horrors even as BYU students laughed over ice cream at an old-fashioned parlor just a few doors down. For the first time in the nine years of the festival, it snowed, adding a powdery layer of mystery and misadventure to the proceedings.
The nights were filled with karaoke and axe-throwing at an axe-bar on the same street as Velour and the ice cream. The single venue for screenings and mountainous backdrop adds to the exclusive, secret clubhouse feel of FilmQuest, one of our 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee — it’s a beautiful thing to watch the filmmakers fall for each other’s films and become good friends over the course of a few-filled days. Among the guests were Destroyer star Georgina Campbell, who hung out to support one of the filmmakers in attendance.
MovieMaker was delighted to attend and wholeheartedly endorse the festival, and among the winning films we caught and cheerily consumed were the dual-income-no-kids horror story “Special Delivery,” which won Best Micro Short; the spectacular horror thriller Influencer; another sharp influencer thriller, Follow Her; the darkly comic music video “Born to Die”; the passionate pro-choice horror anthology “Give Me an A”; and the witty horror-comedy “#Chadgetstheaxe.”
We were also very impressed enjoyed the handcrafted autobiographical short “Demon Box,” which director Sean Wainsteim made as a tribute to his late grandfather, a Holocaust survivor and indefatigable maker of things. And we’ve started reading Drift Off, by Avishai Weinberger, a fast-moving, emotional space station drama that tied for Best Unproduced Screenplay.
Continued after the video for the McKenna Michels song “Born to Die,” directed by Nick Peterson:
We’re still catching up on everything we missed while we chatted with filmmakers and ate ice cream. In the meantime, here’s the complete list of FilmQuest winners. Congratulations to all.
BEST FEATURE FILM
Moon Garden
BEST COMEDY SHORT
(TIE) The Mages of Rages and the Desecration of the House of Mimicry
(TIE) The Unusualist
BEST FANTASTIC SHORT
Lilias Adie
BEST FANTASY SHORT
House of the Unholy
BEST FOREIGN SHORT
Being Born
BEST HORROR SHORT
Keep the Lights On
BEST MICRO SHORT
Special Delivery
BEST MIDNIGHT SHORT
Love is a Fire
BEST SCI-FI SHORT
Convergence
BEST STUDENT SHORT
The Rotting of Casey Culpepper
BEST UTAH SHORT
The Man in the Tree
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
VRDLK: Family of Vurdulak
BEST MUSIC VIDEO
Born to Die
BEST WEB SERIES
Infinity System
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Martyr
THE MINERVA AWARD*
Natasha Halevi for “Give Me An A”
BEST DIRECTOR – FEATURE
Influencer – Kurtis David Harder
BEST SCREENPLAY – FEATURE
Murder, Anyone? – Gordon Bressack
BEST ACTOR – FEATURE ##
Breathing Happy – Shane Brady
BEST ACTRESS – FEATURE
Follow Her – Dani Barker
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – FEATURE
Bunker – Patrick Moltane
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – FEATURE
Influencer – Emily Tennant
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST – FEATURE ##
#chadgetstheaxe
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – FEATURE
Influencer
BEST EDITING – FEATURE
Moon Garden
BEST SOUND – FEATURE
Moon Garden
BEST SCORE – FEATURE
Bashira
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN/ART DIRECTION – FEATURE
Moon Garden
BEST COSTUMES – FEATURE
Moon Garden
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – FEATURE
Bashira
BEST MAKEUP – FEATURE
Moon Garden
BEST DIRECTOR – SHORT
The Following Year – Miguel Campaña
BEST SCREENPLAY – SHORT
Demon Box – Sean Wainsteim
BEST ACTOR – SHORT
Tim Travers and The Time Traveler’s Paradox – Samuel Dunning
BEST ACTRESS – SHORT
Lilias Adie – Kate Dickie
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – SHORT
Ursula – Martin Starr
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – SHORT ##
Lilias Adie – Isis Hainsworth
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST – SHORT
The Breakdown Parables
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – SHORT
The Following Year
BEST EDITING – SHORT
The Big Red Bastard
BEST SOUND – SHORT
Black Dragon
BEST SCORE – SHORT
Once Upon a Time in a Haunted House
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN/ART DIRECTION – SHORT ##
Bad Acid
BEST COSTUMES – SHORT
House of the Unholy
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – SHORT
Wakener
BEST MAKEUP – SHORT
Shiny New World
DIRECTOR’S PRIZE*
Overall Cinematic Achievement – A Life on the Farm
Overall Cinematic Achievement – Give Me An A
Overall Cinematic Achievement – Larvae
Unique Concept & Execution – The Coupon
Cultural Impact & Achievement – One Good Night
Cultural Impact & Achievement – The Signal
BEST UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY – FEATURE
1st Place (TIE) – Drift Off by Avishai Weinberger
1st Place (TIE) – Wolfmother by Shane Bannon & Celina Bernstein
2nd Place – The Spirit Wants by Katherine LaVictoire
3rd Place – Baby Girl by Jason Von Godi
BEST UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY – SHORT
1st Place – Witch, Please! by Meg Swertlow
2nd Place – The Whisper Tree by Daniel Alan Kiely
3rd Place – Boneseed by Brett Brooks & Joshua David Matthews
BEST UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY – FEATURE – TOP 20 FINALISTS
Apocryphal by Hudson Henry Franzoni
Baby Girl by Jason Von Godi
Close by Kristen Wade
Cove by Thomas O’Malley
Decomposer by Mason & Tabitha McDonald
Drift Off by Avishai Weinberger
Frostbite by Minsun Park & Teddy Tenenbaum
Halloween Parade by Julie Sharbutt
Hey Bestie! by Lulenoxx
Intergalactic Io by Seth Nesenholtz
Kiss Me Before You Go by Kevin Sluder
Lupe Q and the Galactic Earworms by Javier Badillo & Nat Marshik
Mutt by Zachary Eglington
Septicemia by Ben Floss
StarFighter: Zero by C.J. Duke
The Blackening by Biagio Gulino & Tyler Kamens
The Rats in the Walls by Luca Violante & Annarosa Schiavone
The Spirit Wants by Kathernie LaVictoire
Tramps Like Us by Julian David Hoxter
Video Nasties by C.J. Duke
Wolf Mother by Shane & Celina Bernstein
BEST UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY – SHORT – TOP 10 FINALISTS
Ash in Amber by Allison Hana
Boneseed by Brett Brooks & Joshua David Matthews
Entrainment by Bill Prokopow
LoveSick by Michael Muchnij
Make Me A Pizza by Talia Shea Levin, Woodrow Currie & Katie Peabody
Murmur by Matthew Woods & Kevin Burns
Skinny Dip by Daniel Pappas
The Safety Games by Jerry Sampson
The Whisper Tree by Daniel Alan Kiely
Witch, Please! by Meg Swertlow
Main image: Moon Garden, the biggest winner at FilmQuest.
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