The New Orleans Film Festival concluded on last week, but has just announced the winners of its 2015 Audience Award winners. The big winner was Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, which has now won its sixth audience award following wins in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, the Hamptons, and Mill Valley.
Room sees writer Emma O’Donoghue adapt her own best-selling novel, which is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. To him the room is his world, but his mother knows different having been held there for 7 years.
The film stars Brie Larson (Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now), Jacob Tremblay (The Smurfs 2, Somnia), Joan Allen (The Bourne Supremacy, Nixon) and William H. Macy (Shameless, Magnolia). Also joining the cast are Sean Bridgers (Rectify), Tom McCamus (The Samaritan) and Megan Park (What If). Room is an Element Pictures and No Trace Camping production, in association with Telefilm Canada, Film4, and Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board. It will be released in Irish cinemas on January 15th.
The New Orleans Film Festival has firmly established itself on the regional film fest circuit as one of the most reputable in the country. It was named by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the “25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” in their 2012, 2013, and 2014 editions, and it was also named by Premium Beat as one of the “Fifteen Fests You Should Enter.” The 2015 edition ran October 14th to 22nd.
Audience Awards, 2015 New Orleans Film Festival
- Spotlight film: Room – Lenny Abrahamson
- Narrative feature: Driving While Black – Paul Sapiano
- Documentary feature: Harry & Snowman – Ron Davis
- Louisiana feature: Delta Justice: The Islenos Trappers War – David DuBos
- Narrative short: Actresses – Jeremy Hersh
- Documentary short: Boxeadora – Meg Smaker
- Louisiana short: The Exceptionally Extraordinary Emporium – Lindsey Phillips
- Experimental short: Shegetsey Betsey – Betsey Brown
- Animated short: We Can’t Live Without Cosmos – Konstantin Bronzit
- Music video: Connection by Jambinai – directed by Hunjeong Shin