 "Photo: Alan Burdziak / The South End")
Despite some minor glitches, the first-ever Michigan Film Awards, held at the Helen L. Deroy Auditorium March 6, and the Detroit Independent Film Festival were successful.
The Burton Theatre reported March 5 that the festival had broken even and that they are willing to host screenings again next year, DIFF Director Robert Joseph Butler said. The entire festival besides the awards ceremony was held at Burton.
“It was a great awards ceremony; we had a lot of great support coming out …. You could really feel it in the atmosphere today, the spirit and the energy that was here tonight was great,” Butler said.
WSU alumnae Lauren Mae Shafer won Best Actress in a Michigan Feature for her role in “The Stevie Wonder Show,” about a man who privately makes his own TV show, only to see his friends try to exploit it.
One presenter didn’t know which envelope to read; a couple of presenters mispronounced names of actors and movies, giving the idea that there was little time set aside for rehearsal.
“It was the first time, so every glitch that can happen, does the first time around, and then you fix things,” said winner of Best Supporting Actress in a Short Film Vikki Gasko.
The awards did something different by recognizing individual performances in short films.
The actors don’t usually get nominated, it’s normally the director who gets the recognition for short films at festivals, Gasko said.
Gasko won for her role as a nanny to a violin prodigy nine-year-old boy in “Raised Alone,” written and directed by Sam Kadi and produced by his company, Samer K Production, based in Commerce Township.
“It’s good to see recognition for the actors,” Kadi, said.
“Raised Alone” was nominated for seven awards and won three: Best Supporting Actor in a Short Film, John Duffey Leo,’ Supporting Actress, Gasko, and Best Original Score by Sonia Lee.
The film is about a boy reconnecting with his workaholic father, played by Alex Safi of Sterling Heights.
Also nominated for seven awards was “Qing Lou Nu,” which is about an Asian prostitute and the lonely man who falls in love with her.
“Qing Lou Nu,” Chinese for ‘the prostitute’ stars Axel Harney, of Whitmore Lake, and Cindy Chu, of Ann Arbor.
Bryan Hopkins, of Riverview, won Best Director of a Short Film for the movie. They had to compete with films that had larger budgets than them, Hopkins said.
“Some of the short films in this production has had as much as $60,000 …. What we focused on was our strengths, which is our story and our acting,” he said.
Hopkins said winning the award was the first time he won an award that he cared about.
The spirit of independent cinema was alive at the awards show.
“I don’t care if Hollywood, L.A., is like the capitol of the world … for big studios, let’s make Michigan, here, the capitol of the world for independent filmmakers …. I think we’re on the right track with the (Michigan film tax) incentive,” Kadi said.
Some of the actors, like Gasko, make a living in show business, and others still have to work other jobs to make ends meet. Safi sells real estate full-time and Harney said he has a side business that someone manages for him, giving him more free-time to pursue his acting career.
“We’re putting in the time for low to little pay to no pay to chase our dream. This is what we love,” Harney said.
Safi recently landed his first roles, albeit small ones, in Hollywood films at the age of 59. He is set to play a Lebanese arms dealer in the Wesley Snipes vehicle “Game of Death” and the Israeli Prime Minister in “Jerusalem Countdown.”
“I get to get killed by Wesley Snipes,” Safi said
Winner of Best Screenplay for a Michigan Feature for the film “Fairview Street,” Michael McCallum runs the company Rebel Pictures. He also produced, directed, co-edited and starred in “Fairview Street,” a drama about the first three days after an ex-con is released from jail on an armed robbery charge.
McCallum liked the ceremony but said it could use some improvement. He said he thinks Robert Butler has done a good job with the festival, but there should be more categories for feature-length films.
Next year Butler plans on having events at the Detroit Film Theatre, in the Detroit Institute of Arts, as well as WSU and Burton Theatre. The DIA is interested and he is scheduled to meet with representatives from there in the near future, he said.
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