Monday, March 3, 2008

Audience Award runner-up in Sedona



Top Left to bottom: Sedona Int'l Film banner • red rocks, showing a fault line and the movement of the earth • Pheonix's Saguaro Skippers and Tucson Twist-Its • JUMP! & Jumper are neighbors at this theater



The Sedona International Film Festival was great fun... several super nice filmmakers and programmers, good movies, free food and a gorgeous landscape with beautiful trails thru red rocks that look like dripping sandcastles. JUMP! was a RUNNER-UP for the AUDIENCE AWARD -- missing it by less than 2 tenths of a point!

Two films tied for this award -- Water Flowing Together by my new pal Gwendolen Cates and Standing Silent Nation by Suree Towfighnia and Courtney Hermann -- both of which will be broadcast on PBS later this year. One of my favorite documentaries of the festival was both tragic and uplifting A Walk to Beautiful.

Both of our screenings sold-out fast. I love that we were screening nextdoor to the new Samuel Jackson big budget thriller "Jumper" -- see photo above. Big thanks to the Phoenix Saguaro Skippers -- a 1-year old team with incredible talent -- and the Tucson Twist-Its for performing at our second screening!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Helen,
Thank you again for the opportunity to be a part of promoting your film. The jumpers enjoyed performing before and after the screening and we all immensely enjoyed the film.

As someone who has been involved with jump rope since before there even was a USA Jump Rope, I can say with confidence that this film captures the exact essence of the sport. Competitions are exactly as you represented them. Some of my best memories are the practices you depicted when we created something new that never existed before. You portrayed the successes and failures of competition and really showed the emotions jumpers experience from the nerves to the tears to the ecstasy. I cannot wait to own this film myself. Not only does it describe the jump rope experience, it also shows the character traits you learn as a part of the sport - teamwork, compassion, patience, determination, persistence, and caring. Thank you for what you have done for the sport of jump rope. This kind of representation is amazing and I applaud you in your efforts.

Sincerely,

Laura (Mercer) Filoso
Jumper since 1991 - and still kicking!