AFI Fest Jury Honors Grbavica and Buddha's Lost Children

From Indiewire, which has been tracking the AFI Fest here:

AFI Fest Honors "Grbavica" and "Buddha's Lost Children" With Top Jury Prizes

AFI Fest 2006 awarded its prizes Sunday in Los Angeles with Jasmila Zbanic's "Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams" winning the narrative grand jury prize at the festival. Bosnia and Herzegovina's official entry for the 2006 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, the film was recently acquired by Strand Releasing. Mark Verkerk's "Buddha's Lost Children" won the documentary grand jury prize. Feature audience awards went to Carla Garapedian's "Screamers" and Lucy Walker's "Blindsight" (tie, documentary) and Fredi M. Murer's "Vitus" (narrative). [Eugene Hernandez]

The award winners are:

JURY AWARDS

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE COMPETITION
GRAND JURY PRIZE
GRBAVICA
DIR/SCR Jasmila Zbaniç PROD Barbara Albert, Damir Ibrahimoviç, Bruno Wagner.
Cast: Mirjana Karanovic, Luna Mijovic, Leon Lucev, Kenan Catic, Jasna Ornela Berry.
Bosnia-Herzegovina/Austria/Germany/Croatia.

THE ART OF CRYING
SPECIAL MENTION
DIR Peter Schønau Fog SCR Bo hr. Hansen NOVEL Erling Jepsen, PROD Thomas Stenderup. Cast: Jannik Lorenzen, Jesper Asholt, Julie Kolbeck, Hanne Hedelund, Thomas Knuth-Winterfeldt. Denmark.

AQUAFINA PURE VISION AWARD
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION GRAND JURY PRIZE)
BUDDHA’S LOST CHILDREN
DIR Mark Verkerk. PROD Ton Okkerse. EXEC PROD Pim van Collem. The Netherlands/France.

As the recipient of this award, Verkerk received a $10,000 unrestricted grant from AQUAFINA

INTERNATIONAL SHORTS COMPETITION
GRAND JURY PRIZE
DISAPPEARING
DIR Stefanie Berk. USA.

The recipient of this award received the Dalsa Digital Cinema Award, a $10,000 camera package courtesy of Dalsa Digital Cinema.

SPECIAL MENTION
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
DIR Chris Shepherd. UK.

Each of the Jury Award winners received $5,000 in motion picture film from the Eastman Kodak Company as well as film related prizes from our other sponsors including DALSA Digital Cinema, Absolut Vodka, Avid Technology, Entertainment Partners , IndieWIRE, , Final Draft, Hollywood Creative Directory, Variety, and Virgin Megastore.

AUDIENCE AWARDS

FEATURE
VITUS
DIR Fredi M. Murer. SCR Peter Luisi, Fredi M. Murer, Lukas B. Suter. PROD Christian Davi, Christof Neracher, Fredi M Murer. Cast: Bruno Ganz, Frbrizio Borsani, Toe Gheorghiu, Julika jekkins, Urs Jucker. Switzerland.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
BLINDSIGHT
DIR Lucy Walker. PROD Sybill Robson Orr. UK/Tibet.

SCREAMERS
DIR Carla Garapedian. PROD Nick de Grunwald, Tim Swain, Carla Garapedian, Peter McAlevey. UK.

SHORT
FAIR TRADE
DIR/SCR Michael Dreher. Germany/Morocco.