Spike Lee announces the winners of Babelgum Online Film Festival

It actually took me several days to post this, sorry. The reason behind the delay is simply that my Babelgum Player will not launch. It just sits there in "initializing" mode. I will post the winners below with their trailers embedded, but if you want to watch the whole films then you must download Babelgum Player here first. Good luck getting it to work.

So Spike Lee was the leader of the panel and made the final decisions on who won. I respect the opinion of Spike Lee, he has had some rather controversial eye opening films that had won many awards as well.

Here is what was posted on the Babelgum Blog.

Last night, chairman of the jury Spike Lee announced the winners of the first Babelgum Online Film Festival at a gala ceremony in Cannes, and presented them with their well-deserved prizes. Click here to see the list of winning films.

After the exciting awards ceremony, the filmmakers (and jurors!) celebrated into the small hours at chic nightspot Le Baoli. The winners of the audience contest - Jennifer Shorr and Jimmy Philémond-Montout - were also there to join in the celebrations.

Congratulations to all the winners! Interviews with each of them and footage from the ceremony will be coming very soon on Babelgum so watch this space.

And now the winners, their trailers, and a little info.

Andrea Lodovichetti
Category: Looking For Genius
Experimental Centre of Cinematography (2004-2006). He has been assistant director of Paolo Sorrentino since 2005. He has been awarded several prizes at national and international competitions.

SOTTO IL MIO GIARDINO (UNDER MY GARDEN) (Italy)
Marco, a 10-year old boy with a passion for insects, is convinced that his neighbour has killed his wife and has buried her under his garden, the evidence being a large ant-nest he has been carefully examining for a while. He decides to carry out some investigations but only reveals his thoughts to his little friend, Sara.

Credits:
Director and Writer - Andrea Lodovichetti
Writers - Luca Caprara, Roberto Santini
Actors - Stefano Bottone, Alessandra Pellegrino, Max Amato, Katia Nani, Dino Spinella, Kasia Zurakowska, Gisella Spinelli
Producer - Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
Babelgum

Rémy Schaepman
Category: Animation
I was born in 1986 in the south of France, and I am currently studying animation art in Gobelins, l'Ecole de l'Image, in Paris.

QUIDAM DÉGOMME (A SHEEP ON A ROOF) (France)
A man is confronted with the change of his day-to-day existence following the landing of a sheep on the roof of the house opposite. A surreal sequence of events unfolds, set to a foot-tapping soundtrack. The grey Paris metro takes on a whole new lease of life… but how does our main character react?

Credits:
Director and Writer - Rémy Schaepman
Producer - Georges Nawrocki
Other - Daniel Capeille
Babelgum

De Bemels Antonin
Category: Music
Antonin is a video and audio artist from Brussels, Belgium. His main areas of interest are movement and the human body, and the dynamic relationship between sounds and images.

MOUTHFACE (Belgium)
And what if you had three mouths instead of one? MOUTHFACE is a music video from Michael Fakesch (Funkstorung). Music = weird funky electronica. Video = web-cam style freaky self-portrait.

Credits:
Director and actor - Antonin De Bemels
Other - Michael Fakesch
Babelgum

Brian Deane
Category: Social/Environment
Brian is a young Writer/Director from Cork in Ireland. Without Words is his first film and deals with a topic thats very important to him. He is a recent graduate from the Huston School of Film and ...

WITHOUT WORDS (Ireland)
We live in a world where technology has given us the tools to communicate but not the ability. Without Words is a very personal film about two close friends who have to pay a very high price for our failure, as a society, to connect.

Credits:
Director - Brian Deane
Writers - Brian Deane, Aine Young
Producer - Evelyn O’Reilly
Actors - Larry McGowran, Robert Kelly
Other - Katie Looney
Publisher - John Huston School of Film and Digital Media
Babelgum

Patrick Curd
Category: Short Film
Writer/Director Richard Recco on set of Officer Down. Richard Recco has been a professional semi- figurative abstract painter since the age of 22. He graduated from the New York Film Academy ...

OFFICER DOWN (USA)
For non-believers, this is a compelling story about a bad cop turned good. For believers, it’s about faith working miracles. Whatever their religious leanings, this film scored so highly with Babelgum audiences that you could hardly see it for all the positive posts popping up on the screen.

Credits:
Director - Richard Recco
Producer - Patrick Curd
Babelgum

Emmanuel Exitu
Category: Documentary
Emmanuel Exitu was born in Italy, in Bologna. He moved to Rome where he worked as a screen writer. He also worked as a cinematographer for the Teatro di Documenti founded by Luciano Damiani, Luca Ronconi and Giuseppe Sinopoli.

GREATER – DEFEATING AIDS (Italy)
This is billed as a non-documentary and watching the way it pulls together various stories about a group of Ugandan women who are HIV positive, we soon realise that we’re seeing life there in a way we might not in the mainstream. Inspiring characters who are full of a zest for life tell us their stories, show us their dances and it feels by the end as though the filmmaker has been the vehicle by which we enter this particular world, rather than the person telling us how to perceive it.

Credits:
Filmmaker, Writer and Producer - Emmanuel Exitu

[TRAILER NOT AVAILABLE]

Ambroise Becchio
Category: Spot Advertising
I was born in January 1981 in the suburbs of Paris (Saint Maurice), France. My father is half Italian and my mom was a Russian refugee. I am bilingual French-Russian. My love for the cinema and staging came when I was a young boy, I was amazed by Chaplin's movies and tried making people laugh by imitating him.

THE POCKET CROSSBORDER (France)
An ad for the quick and easy and probably quite fun way of crossing a border – be a human cannonball. But don’t try this at home or on a border you can legitimately get across because helmet and armour are not included, ok? This film rocketed in the Babelgum audience’s views.

Credits:
Director, Writer and Producer - Ambroise Becchio
Actor - Nicolas Russeil
Other - Linda Brisson, Laurent Gilli, Charlotte Graillat
Babelgum

Again, I am not sure why my Babelgum Player is whacked out, but if you have any suggestions on getting it to work again, please leave a comment. THANKS!