News

Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's "October Country" won the Sterling U.S. Feature Award at Silverdocs: The AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which concludes Monday in the Washington, D.C. area. The Sterling World Feature Award went to Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's "Mugabe and the White African."

"October" documents the multi-generational story of a working-class family coping with poverty, teen pregnancy, foster care, child molestation and war.

"Mugabe" explores, through the lens of a 74-year-old white farmer, Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe's controversial land seizure program, which intended to re-distribute white-owned farmland.

The award for a short film went to Andreas Koefoed's "12 Notes Down," the portrait of a 14-year choir performer coping with the fact that his voice is changing.

A Special Jury mention went to "Salt," directed by Michael Angus and Murray Fredericks, which chronicles photographer Murray Frederick's journey into the remote salt flats in South Australia.

• Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's October Country and Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's Mugabe and the White African are the big winners at the 7th edition of the Silverdocs Documentary Festival (one of the two major strictly documentary showcase film festivals for North America - other being Toronto's Hotdocs). Both films receive a cash prize of 10 thousand big ones. The jury which included Margaret Brown (one of our favorite doc filmmakers) awarded October Country with the Sterling Award for a Us Feature, while the jury that included Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon) awarded Mugabe... with the Sterling Award for a World Feature. Last year's winner were The Garden, and Smith's English Surgeon. Here is the issued press release featuring all the award winners, with the public favorite being announced tomorrow. Sterling Award for a Us Feature goes to October Country directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher,

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