BronzeLens Film Festival (BronzeLens) 2014 winners were announced at the BronzeLens Awards Show ceremony held at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis where the ‘Best of Festival’ filmmakers in their perspective categories received top honors. Award winning film categories included the Feature, Documentary, International, Short, Documentary Short, Student, Webisodes as well as Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Overall and the Audience Awards.

Of the 43 juried films screened, a panel of 14 judges selected the work of filmmakers representing the United States, Africa and South America to receive BronzeLens Awards. This year BronzeLens Awards prizes were enhanced by generous sponsor contributions. SIM Digital provided an Arri Light Kit gear package and color correction valued at more than $30,000 for the Best Overall winner, BET Networks presented $5000 for Best Short, the ASPiRE Television Student Award included a network internship and Entertainment Partners gave budgeting and scheduling software to the Best Feature and Best Documentary filmmakers.

“It is a privilege to showcase the work of some of world’s best and brightest filmmakers at BronzeLens,” said Deidre McDonald, BronzeLens Film Festival Artistic Director. “Their creativity and passion inspires us to continue to serve as champions of the industry.”

The 2014 BronzeLens winners, awards and films synopsis’s are as follows:

The Best Overall -Best Feature-: CRU 
(Producer: Danny Green, Alton Glass, Courtney Triggs, Matthew Hatchet, Oliver W. Ottley III, Director: Alton Glass) 
— Nearly twenty years after a tragedy, the reunion of four high school friends opens old wounds, exposes long-hidden secrets and paves the road to forgiveness and redemption.

Best Documentary: Life’s Essentials With Ruby Dee 
(Producer: Jevon ‘NJ’ Frank, Director: Muta’Ali Muhammad) 
—In this open-letter style documentary, Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis’ rich lives guide their grandson on his personal quest to master lasting love conscious art, and undying activism.

Best Webisode: Good Girls 
(Producer: Kai Parham, Asia Lampley , Director: Rhavynn Drummer) 
—Four young women in pursuit of love and success in Atlanta, maneuver through their blossoming individuality and moral upbringing.

Best International: They Are We 
(Producer: Emma Christopher/Sergio Leyva Seiglie, Director: Emma Christopher) 
—A family separated by the transatlantic slave trade for 200 years sing and dance its way back together? THEY ARE WE tells how, after a set of remarkable discoveries, Cuco and Alfredo set out to do just that, and how Joe and Solomon welcomed them home.

Best Student: Little Africa 
(Producer: Curtis Adair, Director: Justin Oney) 
—During the massacre of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, a biracial cop passing as white protects his black mother from the town genocide.

Best Short: Hero Mars 
(Producer: Susan Chapman, Director: Skyler Cooper) 
—A down and out actor gets the chance of a lifetime to audition for a world class theater company but struggles against misconceptions, hostility, and ignorance in their quest to gain acceptance.

Best Short Documentary: The Helen Lindsey Story 
(Producer: Maria Howell, Director: Mike Ray) 
—Courage, Determination and WILL, only partially describe Helen Lindsey and the journey she’s traveled with no limbs. Her story will change YOUR life forever.

Best Actress: Rain Pryor for That Daughter’s Crazy 
(Producers: Sam Adelman and Daryl Sledge, Director: Elzbieta Szoka) 
—Some apples don’t fall far from the tree. That Daughter’s Crazy, directed by Elzbieta Szoka and produced by Paradox Smoke Productions, is a portrait of actress/singer Rain Pryor, daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor.

Best Actor: Keith Robinson for CRU

The winners of the Audience Awards, determined by audience votes throughout the Festival are:

Best Feature: CRU 
(Producer: Danny Green, Alton Glass, Courtney Triggs, Matthew Hatchet, Oliver W. Ottley III, Director: Alton Glass)

Best Documentary: Life’s Essentials With Ruby Dee 
(Producer: Jevon ‘NJ’ Frank, Director: Muta’Ali Muhammad) 
Best Short: THE B WORD 
Producers: Nakisha Celistan and Nichole Celistan, Director:Jermaine R. Spencer 
—THE B WORD is a cinematic short narrative depicting two sisters on conflicting paths; both leading to a destructive cycle of fear, blame and uncertainty. The story is set around the disease of ‘Bulimia Nervosa’.

Best Student: Little Africa 
(Producer: Justin Oney, Director: Curtis Adair)

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