An Inside Look at the Awards Jury
Our Head Juror, Alison Jones-Pomatto, gives the inside scoop on how the Wild & Scenic Film Festival’s jury decides which of our official selections are award winners.
Alison Jones-Pomatto
With the retirement of the incomparable Chuck Jaffee, I am the head juror for the 2012 Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival. I have been privileged to serve on the jury for the past three years and have seen some really outstanding and inspiring films. Being on the jury is a great job. We get to select the award winning films that will be announced at the Awards Ceremony. But how do we get to that point?
This year, 350 films were submitted for consideration for the Festival. Some are made by professionals with big money sponsorship, others by first time filmmakers exploring their passion on their own dime. A very committed selection panel watched ALL of them. They then chose 110+ Official Selections that will be presented over the three days of the Festival. Of these, 37 were selected for consideration by the panel of jurors. Our panel is made up of activists and filmmakers who have a strong understanding of what elements make a good film and definite opinions on what we each like.
In the past, the Festival organizers burned countless discs of every film that the jurors watched on their own. But we are an environmental film festival and that was incredibly wasteful. So this year, we are using Vimeo. All of the films have been uploaded to the Vimeo website and we each download them and watch them at our leisure. There is no waste and it is very easy and portable. I watched several films on very rainy days on Kauai in December. Granted, we are watching the films on a computer screen that doesn’t do justice to some of the spectacular cinematography in some of our films, but as all the films are watched on the same small screen, when one really stands out, we know it is a winner.
So while all of you have been rushing around in holiday mode, the Wild and Scenic jury has been busy watching our 37 films. We each rank them then will soon meet to discuss the films and assign the awards of Best of Festival, Spirit of Activism, Most Inspiring Adventure Film, Best Short Short, along with three Jury Awards and Honorable Mentions. The jurors’ discussion is one of my favorite parts of judging. We all come in with our strong opinions but the ensuing conversation is lively and leads to an often, unexpected consensus.
What films will be selected as award winners for the 10th Annual Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival? Join the filmmakers and film lovers at the Awards Ceremony at 4:15pm on Saturday, January 14th at the Stone Hall in the Miners Foundry and find out!
- Alison Jones-Pomatto
