51st Chicago Int'l Film Festival Announces Audience Choice Awards -

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THE AUDIENCE HAS SPOKEN

51st Chicago International Film Festival Announces Audience Award Winners
CHICAGO, IL – Cinema/Chicago’s 51st Chicago International Film Festival announces the winners of its Audience Choice Awards. Every new film that played at the 51st Festival (Oct 15-29, 2015) is eligible to win the audience award.
Festival audience members received a ballot at each public screening during the two-week Chicago International Film Festival. Festival moviegoers ranked films on a five-point scale.
All votes were tallied and averaged after the 51st Festival officially closed. Overall, audience members gave this year’s Festival films an average rating of 4.2 out of a five-point scale. Films that received the highest averages were declared the winners as listed below.

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD WINNERS
Presented by Cinema/Chicago

Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative English-Language Feature
SPOTLIGHT
Country: USA
Director: Tom McCarthy
Synopsis: Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James and Stanley Tucci, Spotlight tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world. Directed by Academy Award-nominee Tom McCarthy, Spotlight is a tense investigative dramatic-thriller, tracing the steps to one of the biggest cover-ups in modern times.
Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Foreign-Language Feature
MUSTANG
Country: Turkey, Greece, France
Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Synopsis: At the start of this stark, meditative drama that recalls The Virgin Suicides, five sisters play in the sea with their male classmates. As punishment for such immoral behavior, the grandmother and uncle raising the girls imprison them at home to maintain their “purity” until marriage. Submission or defiance seems to be the only options, as each sister, one by one, finds her own personal escape route.
NOTE: Mustang is also France’s entry into the 2016 Academy Awards.
Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature
WHERE TO INVADE NEXT
Country: USA
Director: Michael Moore
Synopsis: What has lured Michael Moore, the documentary genre’s most entertaining rabble-rouser, back to feature films after a six-year hiatus? Only the future of his country, naturally. Where To Invade Next is an expansive, rib-tickling, and subversive comedy in which Moore, playing the role of “invader,” visits a host of nations to learn how the U.S. could improve its own prospects. The creator of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine is back with this hilarious and eye-opening call to arms. Where To Invade Next shows the solutions to America’s most entrenched problems already exist in the world, he says–they’re just waiting to be co-opted.

NOTE:

Where To Invade Next also won the 51st Chicago International Film Festival’s

Founders Award, which is given to one film across all categories that captures the spirit of the Chicago International Film Festival for its unique and innovative approach to the art of the moving image. The award was given to director Michael Moore at the Festival’s Awards Night on Friday, October 23,

2015 at The Peninsula.

Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film

OH LUCY!

Country: Japan, Singapore, USA

Director: Atsuko Hirayanagi

Synopsis: A chain-smoking, corporate Japanese woman develops a crush on her English teacher in this ingenious comedy of manners and Americanization.

ABOUT CINEMA/CHICAGO

Cinema/Chicago is a not-for-profit arts and education organization dedicated to encouraging better understanding between cultures and to making a positive contribution to the art form of the moving image. The Chicago International Film Festival is one of the year-round programs presented by Cinema/Chicago, which also include itsTelevision Awards, CineYouth Festival, INTERCOM Competition, International Screenings Program, and Education Program. More information at ChicagoFilmFestival.com.

FESTIVAL PARTNERS

The 51st Chicago International Film Festival’s sponsors include Gold Festival Partners: TIAA-CREF, Columbia College Chicago, Wintrust Community Banks; Official Airline: American Airlines; Headquarters Hotel: JW Marriott Chicago; Silver Festival Partners: Bloomberg, Intersites; Platinum Media Partners: National CineMedia (NCM), JC Decaux, Michigan Avenue Magazine; Gold Media Partners: WTTW11, Time Out Chicago, WBEZ91.5, WXRT-FM, WBBM Newsradio, and The Hollywood Reporter; Bronze Festival Partners: Stella Artois, AARP, Tribune Media; Participating Partners: SundanceNow Doc Club, Whole Foods, Wansas Tequila, Cultivate Studios, Netrix, KIND, OtterBox, Optimus, Sound Investment; Official Vehicle: Volvo; Participating Hotels: Public Chicago, The Whitehall Hotel, theWit and Loews Chicago Hotel; and Cultural Partners: Consulate General of Argentina in Chicago, Consulate General of Italy in Chicago, Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, Italian Film Commission, Italian Trade Agency, Polish Film Institute, Goethe Institut, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, ANCINE National Cinema Agency of Brazil, and Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest. With Foundation and Government support from the National Endowment of the Arts, Alphawood Foundation Chicago, the Illinois Arts Council, and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Additional support provided by Allstate, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Dark Horse Wine, Effen Vodka, Lavazza, and SkinnyPop.

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