Jeremy Irons at the 2013 Open City Docs Festival

Open City Docs Fest 2013 finished on Sunday evening with an awards ceremony hosted by Jeremy Irons. After four days of events, including film screenings, workshops, panel discussions, master classes amongst others, festival goers congregated in the Cinema Tent to hear Irons give the verdict on the award nominees.

As guests sipped on Aspall’s Cuvée Chevalier or Beefeater Gin cocktails, Irons explained that he and his fellow jurors had faced some tough decisions. Open City Docs Fest’s bold programming – covering a wide range of viewpoints and stories and exploring cinematic and political issues – had led to an extremely high standard of beautiful and thought-provoking films.
Jurors included:

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum
BAFTA Award-winning director and producer Molly Dineen
Sundance Award-winning director Kim Longinotto
Emmy-winning director of digital documentary Highrise, Katerina Cizek
Producer of Into the Abyss, Andre Singer
Director Brian Hill (Secret History of Our Streets).

After detailing exactly what it was that separated the wheat from the chaff, and set an Open City Docs award-winning documentary apart from its rivals, Irons proclaimed Matthew’s Laws, directed by filmmaker Marc Schmidt the winner of the Grand Jury Award.

Award winners:

Grand Jury Award
Winner: Matthew’s Laws, directed by Marc Schmidt
Emerging International Filmmaker Award, sponsored by Aspall Cyder
Special mention: Wonder House, directed by Oonagh Kearney
Winner: Karaoke Girl, directed by Visra Vichit Vadakan
Emerging UK Filmmaker Award, sponsored by The British Council
Winner: Black Out, directed by Eva Weber
Best City Film Award, sponsored by Publica
Winner: The Venice Syndrome, directed Andreas Pichler
Best Short Documentary Award, awarded by the London Short Film Festival
Winner: The Whistle, directed by Grezgorz Zariczny
Special mention: FilmStripe, directed by John Blouin
MyStreet Awards, awarded by the Grand Jury
Winner: Richard, directed by Matt Hopkins
2nd prize: Niche in the Market, directed by Rod Main
3rd Prize: Blaenau, directed by Eira Wyn Jones

We at Open City Docs Fest would like to congratulate all the nominees and also give our thanks to our excellent juries.