AND THE WINNERS ARE...
Celebrating the sixth year, the New Hampshire Film Expo (NHFX) kicked off this year’s festival with Portsmouth’s Mayor Steve Marchand proclaiming October 12-15, “Independent Filmmakers & Screenwriters Film Appreciation Weekend,” to a crowd of nearly 500 people on opening night.

Two new awards were added to this year’ award ceremony, the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Award. The Audience Award is presented to the film that has garnered the most votes from the screening audience of select films. The Grand Jury Award made up of five well regarded industry experts judged the best overall film of the entire festival. This award is an amazing new opportunity for filmmakers to have their work seen by highly successful members of the independent film industry. This year’s Grand Jury were,
• Chase Bailey, Executive Producer, The Libertine (starring Johnny Depp)
• Mark Bell, Senior Account Executive/Acquisitions Manager, Film Threat
• Buzz McLaughlin - Producer, The Sensation of Sight (starring David Straitharn)
• Gina, Carbone, Film Reviewer, Seacoast Media Group/Spotlight Magazine
• Thom Cardwell, Executive Director, Philadelphia Film Society, Philadelphia Film Festival

After more than 65 films, numerous workshops, and all-access parties, winners from this year’s film festival were announced at closing ceremonies on Sunday. And the winners are…

• Best Feature Film: Johnny Was, directed by Mark Hammond and written by Brendan Foley
• Best Short Comedy Film: Moosecock, directed by Will Hartman
• Best Short Drama Film: Vacationland, directed by Lance Edmands
• Best Documentary Film: Flock of Dodos, directed by Randy Olson
• Best Animation Film: The Toll, directed by J. Zachary Pike and produced by Marc Dole and Hatchling Studios
• Best Student Film: Checkout, directed by Dan Eckman
• Best Screenplay: Unity, by Eugene L. Langalis, III
• Audience Award: Chasing Buckner, directed by Christoph Gelfand
• Grand Jury Award: The Trials of Darryl Hunt, directed by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern

The Sixth Annual New Hampshire Film Expo is the state’s only event of its kind and is one of the largest in New England, screening an average of 50 films from more than a dozen states and many different countries each year. This year’s filmmakers came from as far away as Spain and Australia to attend the festival. More than 3,000 people attended this year’s films, seminars, ceremonies, and parties—the highest number of attendance recorded for NHFX in Portsmouth thus far.