32nd Annual (2021) Award Winners
The 32nd annual (& 1st hybrid) edition of the Tampa Bay International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (TIGLFF). We are happy to announce the Audience & Jury Awards today following the final tallying of ballots.
Jury Awards
Jury Award for Best Feature Film
Winner: Potato Dreams of America
Director: Wes Hurley
2021, USA
An autobiographical dark comedy about a gay boy growing up in the Soviet Union, his mail-order bride mother and their adventurous escape to America.
(Drama, Comedy, Coming of Age, Gay) 96 mins.
Jury Award for Best Feature Documentary
Winner: Invisible: Women in Southern Music
Director: T.J. Parsell
2021, USA
Growing up gay in the South is hard enough, but to be an openly gay woman in country music is nearly impossible. Nashville is a man's town, yet a group of gay women have persevered anyhow - making an indelible impact on country and southern music.
Jury Award for Best Short Film
Winner: Night Ride (Nattrikken)
Director: Eirik Tveiten
2020, Norway
During a cold night in December, Ebba waits for the tram home, but an unexpected turn of events will test her mental and emotional fortitude.
Jury Award for Best Short Documentary
Winner: No Man's Land
Director: Anna Andersen and Gabriella Cana
2021, USA
The 1970s saw the birth of womyn’s lands, communities where lesbian separatists could live together, away from a patriarchal society. A handful of these womyn formed Alapine in rural Alabama, where no men are allowed.
Jury Award for Best Animation
Winner: Reviving the Roost
Director: Vivek Shraya
2019, Canada
This pulsating neon-light ode to a popular Edmonton gay bar that closed in 2007, is also a story about community complexity and longing, and an elegy to a lost space.
Jury Award for Creativity in Social Awareness
Winner: Sundown Town
Director: Mylo Butler
2020, USA
Bryce & Mitchell's trip home is disrupted after making a pit stop in a mysteriously unwelcoming town.
Jury Award for Outstanding Web Series
Winner: Early to Rise
Director: Alec Cohen
2020, USA
On the way to a distant planet, three less-than-qualified astronauts are awoken 90 years too early and trapped inside their hibernation pods. Alone in the endless void, they can’t kill themselves, they can’t kill each other, so they’ll just have to kill time.
Audience Awards
Audience Award for Best Feature Film
Winner: Language Lessons
Director: Natalie Morales
2021, USA
A Spanish teacher and her student develop an unexpected friendship.
(Drama, Comedy) 91 mins.
Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary
Winner: Invisible: Women in Southern Music
Director: T.J. Parsell
2021, USA
Growing up gay in the South is hard enough, but to be an openly gay woman in country music is nearly impossible. Nashville is a man's town, yet a group of gay women have persevered anyhow - making an indelible impact on country and southern music.
Audience Award for Best Short Film
Winner: Wings
Director: Jamie Weston
2020, UK
Spanning over six decades, this lesbian love story between two Land Army girls during World War II is a partially silent film starring two BAFTA award-winning actresses.
Audience Award for Best Short Documentary
Winner: No Man's Land
Directors: Anna Andersen and Gabriella Cana
2021, USA
The 1970s saw the birth of womyn’s lands, communities where lesbian separatists could live together, away from a patriarchal society. A handful of these womyn formed Alapine in rural Alabama, where no men are allowed.
Audience Award for Best Animation
Winner: The Queen’s Heart
Director: Samuel Player
2021, USA
A glance through LGBTQ+ history through the mirrors of a Drag Queen - a story of love, loss and chosen family.
Alan Ira Dusowitz Emerging Filmmaker Awards
The Friends of the Festival Fund was established in 2009 through the estate of Alan Ira Dusowitz. This endowment trust helps fund film programming content for TIGLFF. In honor of Alan, TIGLFF will give annual awards for Best Emerging Film-maker in the categories of Full Length Feature Film and Short Film.
BEST EMERGING FILMMAKER OF FEATURE-LENGTH FILM:
Nicole Rodenberg and Colin Froeber for Glob Lessons
2021, USA
Two mismatched strangers confront their fears of intimacy and inadequacy as they tour low-budget children's theatre out of a minivan across the frozen Upper Midwest.
BEST EMERGING FILMMAKER OF SHORT FILM:
Brandon L. Wilson for Gaydream
2021, USA
A young, imaginative man seeks the support of his outgoing lesbian roommate, while trying to come out to his conservative mother.