The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2023 - Issue 33

bitefilmfestival Local Jury Award winner Liquor Store Dreams documented second-generation Korean-American children, including film- maker So Fun Um, growing up in their parents’ liquor store in predominantly Black South Los Angeles. In the coming-of-age drama, Sublime, shy teen musician Manu finds himself pining for his lifelong best friend Felipe whilst experiencing a buck- ling family life and music becoming his salvation. Another coming-of-age story, Talia’s Journey, showed a young Belgian woman travelling to her ancestral home in Senegal, West Africa, for the first time to connect with the extended family she’s never met. Susie Searches follows an overeager col- lege student desperate to boost the listenership of her fledging true-crime podcast. When a local social media star goes miss- ing, Susie sees an opportunity, but realises popularity and the truth are not a smooth road. The main award categories include the FIPRESCI (Fédération Internationale de la Press Cinématographique) Prize for films in the International Feature Film Oscar® Submissions pro- gramme. This year, the Best International Film award went to the French drama Saint Omer for “using the ostensibly narrow framework of a heightened legal docudrama to expertly inter- rogate issues of society, culture, race, and gender.” Spanish drama film Alcarràs received Best International Screenplay for its rich harvest of agricultural life and remark- able authenticity and empathy. Best Actress in an Internation- al Film went to Oksana Cherkashyna for her performance as Irka, a pregnant woman, in the Ukrainian drama Klondike. Her “strong sense of pacing and spatial movement, in the fre- quently occurring long takes with ever-so-slow and meticu- lously subtle camerawork” won the panel’s vote. Pakistani actor and playwright Ali Junejo was awarded Best Actor in an International Film for his intimate, thoughtful and nuanced performance as Haider in Joyland, a man grappling with his diverging sense of self and familial responsibility. The panel praised Junejo, who “emerged as the film’s most flexi- ble and dependable performance owing to his generosity and earnestness with each cast member, both in behavioural and linguistic choices.” Other categories are the Best Documentary Award for compel- ling non-fiction filmmaking, New Voices New Visions Award focuses on unique viewpoints from first and second-time di- rectors, and the Ibero-American Award for the best film from Latin America, Spain or Portugal. Local Jury Award for a film promoting understanding and acceptance between people, the Young Cineastes Award for a film chosen by the festival’s youth jury, and the Mozaik Bridging the Borders Award for a movie successful in bringing the people of our world closer together. Entertainment Tonight's Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner hosted the annual Film Awards Gala, taking over from former ET anchor Mary Hart. The duo was joined by actors Hong Chau, Jamie Lee Curtis and Sally Field. Brian Tyree Henry, Stephanie Hsu, Eric Idle, Sam Rockwell, novelist Kazuo Ishig- uro and film director Baz Luhrmann presented the honourees with the John Kennedy ‘The Entertainer’ statue or a Chihuly glass sculpture.