Americanish, the debut feature from Iman K. Zawahry, took home two awards this Saturday at the 15th annual Amelia Island Film Festival, continuing a successful festival run for the Jackson Heights-set romantic comedy.
Americanish is the “the first American Muslim rom-com made by Muslim women about Muslim women” Zawahry said when accepting the narrative feature award on Saturday at an event at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island.
Later, the grand jury prize was presented by Mr. and Mrs. Vasant Patel (whom you might recognize from Meet the Patels) and that also went to Americanish.
“It’s a regular rom-com with South Asian women that are leads,” Zawahry said on her second trip to the podium. “Using art to create social change is very, very important to me. And I’m just incredibly honored that it’s recognized today by the festival.”
Zawahry also noted that this grand jury prize at Amelia Island is Americanish‘s third grand jury prize on the film festival circuit.
Other award winners include The Dark Hobby which won Best Documentary Feature. When accepting the award director Paula Fouce was hopeful, noting that “people are starting to understand what’s happening to reef wildlife.”
Also read: At the Amelia Island Film Festival, Fish & Men and The Dark Hobby Call Out Oceanic Absurdities
Gabriel Diamond had five short films in the Amelia Island Film Festival program and his documentary short winner “Strangers in Boxes” was commissioned through the Skoll Foundation, where he works as a filmmaker and photographer. When accepting the award, Diamond nodded to the number of Zoom-based documentaries produced during the pandemic but that wanted his film to be different:
“We wanted to try to find a way to show the interconnectedness that people were longing for in this global way that had been lost with travel shutdowns,” Diamond said. “And we invited activists from all over the world to join a Zoom call: strangers, all of them. And we lead these people through an experience on Zoom. And my goal was to make a Zoom documentary that was unlike any other documentary that I’d ever seen on Zoom, where it was like: how we push the boundaries of this little webcam?”
Diamond is also the co-creator of the Vulnerable Rally, which was documented in another short he had in the festival program.
Here are the full list of winners:
Grand Jury Prize: Americanish
Narrative Feature: Americanish
Documentary Feature: The Dark Hobby
Documentary Short: “Strangers In Boxes”
Hollywood South: “Walking Around”
Student Short: “Ripple”
International Short: “Frozen Out”
Audience Award, Documentary Feature: One Pint at a Time
Audience Award, Documentary Short: “STRANDED: A Whale Rescue Tale”
Audience Award, Spotlight Feature: LEFTOVER FEELINGS: A Studio B Revival
Amelia Island Film Festival runs through today. Main image: A scene from Americanish.
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