The Iris Prize: Winner Announced

A haunting tale about an urban guy and a country boy who pay the ultimate price for love was named at the weekend as the 2008 winner of The Iris Prize, the Wales-based international gay and lesbian short film festival, with its £25,000 award. At a glittering awards evening in Cardiff, Dr Who writer and Torchwood creator Russell T Davies announced that the international jury had selected German filmmaker Till Kleinert’s Cowboy to scoop the coveted award.

Accepting the award, Keinert said taking part in the competition and attending the three-day festival in the Welsh capital had been an incredible experience. He urged The Iris Prize organisers to ensure as the competition inevitably grows even larger in future years the unique way international filmmakers and judges and the people of Cardiff are brought together must be retained.

Festival organiser Berwyn Rowlands said: “This year Cardiff demonstrated to the world that with the support of Iris the city could become a significant force for the world’s lesbian and gay film community. The closing night awards show was totally amazing, with guests from Germany, Israel, Australia, Canada and the US all enjoying our Welsh hospitality. Everyone involved should be very proud of what has been achieved. We’ve already started working on next year’s festival and believe that even bigger and better things are expected of Iris in 2009. Cowboy is a fantastic film that captured the imagination of the jury and the general public. Till Kleinert is a huge talent. I’m so excited that he will return to Wales to make a new film with his prize.”

Speaking before the awards evening Russell T Davies said: “I’m very excited to be involved with The Iris Film Festival. It’s a fantastic prize, which allows one lucky winner to make a short film. This year’s shortlist includes work from an astonishing 11 countries, which confirms that gay and lesbian filmmaking is alive and kicking around the world.”

The winning 35-minute film, which Kleinert had introduced at its screening, tells the story of city-dwelling Christian, who works for a real-estate agent, and how he esv
capes to a deserted village where he meets country lad Cowboy. They spend a blissful day and night together, but when the harvest begins at dawn the village shows its real face and the two men are forced to pay a terrible price in order to leave.

At the awards ceremony Mr Gay UK, Dino Gamecho, announced that the competition’s new award for best feature film was won by American James Bolton for Dream Boy, a tragic love story between teenagers in the American South in the 1970s. The feature film award carries a £1,000 cash prize. Last year’s Iris Prize winner Dee Rees announced that the Skillset Best UK Short was won by Northern Ireland director Conor Clements for his film James. He receives £1,000 towards training.

The awards evening also included a screening of BBC Wales’s Week In Week Out programme presented by former Steps singer turned actor Ian H Watkins about growing up gay in the Valleys which was followed by a lively and heated debate during which Russell T Davies urged broadcasters to use their authority not to provide a platform for homophobic religious zealots with extremist views as they were clearly mentally ill.

The international jury included last year’s winner Dee Rees, actor Simon Russell Beale, director Nia Dryhurst and filmmakers, actors and industry stalwarts from across the world. At an earlier screening of last year’s winning film, Pariah, Rees revealed her family had still not come to terms with her daughter being gay and had not seen the film which they regarded as “the devil’s work”.

Rees said the importance of the prize was the fact it gave new directors what they really need – the £25,000 resource to continue making films. She also revealed Pariah is now being made into a full-length feature film and that she plans to travel back to Wales to make a new short film set in Cardiff’s Somali community.

A montage of the shortlisted films can be seen on Iris TV at www.irisprize.org. The 2009 festival will take place between October 7-10.