Awards

Held Sunday of each festival, the Red Bicycle Awards mark the closing of VIFF, where nominees from eligible screening sections compete for the Quartermaster Award, which recognizes excellence in feature filmmaking, and the Burton Award, which recognizes excellence in short filmmaking. Individual nominees also compete for:

• Best Screenplay
• Best Director
• Best Actor (inclusive of all sexes and genders)
• Best Supporting Actor (inclusive of all sexes and genders)
• Best Cinematography
• Best Editing
• Best Original Music
• Best Production Design
• Best Costume Design
• Best Stunt

Narrative Features are considered for all Red Bicycle Awards, while Documentary Features are only considered for the Quartermaster Award, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. Narrative Shorts and Documentary Shorts compete only for the Burton Award. Consideration does equate to actual nomination for the Red Bicycle Awards, which is determined solely by Vashon Film Institute’s Executive Team.

Non-jury awards include the Audience Award for favorite feature and short film, as voted by VIFF’s patrons. Films in all screening sections are eligible for the Audience Award.

JURY

Each year, VIFF selects 5 motion picture professionals to serve on its jury. Juror obligations include reviewing all of the films selected by VFI to screen at VIFF and submitting votes necessary to determine the relevant Red Bicycle Award winners. Prior to juror voting, nominations for awards are determined by VFI.

VIFF 2024 Awards

The Jury

Actor Dian Bachar (Orgazmo, BASEketball), writer/director Justin Foia (Point Defiance, DOE), and VIFF alums Olivia Kuan (The Herricanes, VIFF 2023), writer/director Paris Zarcilla (Raging Grace, VIFF 2023), and actress/producer Decker Sadowski (Juniper, VIFF 2022). Attendees determined the audience awards.

The Quartermaster Award for Excellence in Feature Filmmaking went to director Guan Hu’s Black Dog, which follows a man named Lang as he returns to his hometown after being released from jail and strikes up an unlikely connection with a stray dog. The film also took home Best Director (Guan Hu), Best Screenplay (Ge Rui and Guan Hu), and Best Cinematography (Gao Weizhe).

The Audience Award for Best Feature went to director Brendan Gabriel Murphy’s Fluxx which finds actress Vada Pierce desperate for answers after she awakens in a bathtub with no memory of prior events and discovers that her home has been ransacked and her husband is missing,

The Burton Award for Excellence in Short Filmmaking went to director Jack Dunphy’s Bob’s Funeral, which also won the Audience Award for Best Short, a multi-media documentary that mixes family videos with various animation styles in search of the root of generational trauma and familial estrangement.

Best Production Design went to Brandon Tonner-Connolly (I Saw the TV Glow), which is a once-in-a-generation horror film that follows suburban teenager Owen, whose classmate Maddy introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show that is a vision of the supernatural world beneath their own.

Best Editing went to Kathryn Robson & Chris Gibson and Best Original Music went to Chris Ruggiero, both for Resynator, which chronicles director Alison Tavel’s journey through the unsettling secrets and complex truths of her late father, inventor Don Tavel, who built a synthesizer prototype before his death when she was only ten months old.

Best Actor went to Everett Blunck for Griffin in Summer, the fourteen-year-old title character who spends summer vacation putting on a dramatic new play until his attention drifts to kindred spirit Brad, a zoned-out handyman and failed performance artist.

Best Supporting Actor went to Eryk Lubos for Swarm (Rój), the patriarch of a family self-exiled on a remote island until his wife expresses a desire to return to the world from which they are hiding.

Best shortCUTZ (sponsored by C’Mon Barber) went to Boo by Jake Conroy, chronicling the adventures of a young girl after moving to a remote island.

PAST AWARDS