Something Completely New: Reflecting on the Winter Film Awards International Film Festival 2023
At the start of 2023, I was fortunate to get cast as an awards presenter for the Winter International Film Awards. Quickly, however, I also got offered the chance to be a Q&A Moderator for post-screening Q&A’s at the film festival, as well as an interviewer of some of the filmmakers.
I said yes, but I was definitely outside of my comfort zone!
Interviewing Dawn Jones Redstone (The post-screening Q&A is available on the Winter Film Awards Instagram page)
What do I ask? Will I freeze up? Will I sound dumb? – All thoughts coursing through my head when I agreed to do the interviews and the Q&A moderation. However, I quickly reminded myself that this wasn’t about me, this was about the many amazing independent films that needed a spotlight. As soon as I internalized that, the task became so easy because it turned into just having wonderful conversations with amazing filmmakers about something that already deeply interests me: films and filmmaking.
My first Q&A was with Dawn Jones Redstone who wrote and directed the feature film Mother of Color, a story about a single mother of Peruvian descent who begins receiving mysterious messages from her ancestors. It was a fantastic film that really spoke to both intergenerational trauma and intergenerational healing.
Next, I was very glad to interview Randall Dottin and Ari Schwartz, the co-producers and co-writers of the animated film Mine. It was great getting to speak with them before and during the interview about their creative process as well as what it was like creating a film during the start of the pandemic.
The following day, I interviewed the filmmakers of Lost Cos, Yellow Lines, and Neither Here Nor There. See below for the video. Unfortunately, parts of the interviews were cut for time, but these were all such wonderful conversations and I’m so lucky that I was able to have them!
Presenting at the Winter Film Awards
Finally, the awards ceremony!
This was probably the least stressful part of the whole two weeks once everything was said and done. I had a beautiful dress (that I got off the rack in the Macy’s clearance section), and the festival provided hair and makeup services. I had my makeup done by the wonderful makeup artist, Ardak, and she did such a great job, especially with the fact that I was wearing glasses since I’ve run out of contacts!
I had presented two awards: Best Animated Feature, and Best Actor in a Feature Film. I certainly had to learn to think on my feet for both categories since the floor was slippery (hello heels) and, during the second category, my co-presenter almost knocked over one of the hanging TVs (oops!). Afterwards, one of the best compliments I got was from a girl who watched the whole awards presentation. She had asked me if I’ve ever presented before. When I said that I hadn’t, she was taken aback and told me that it seemed like I was a natural and have been presenting for a while. How kind of her!
And the other than presenting the awards, the rest of the night was just about having fun!
Overall, this festival was amazing and I genuinely hope that we’ll collaborate again in the future :)