Arts & Entertainment

Stony Brook Film Fest to Close Tonight with Awards Ceremony

Closing night party is sold out.

The audience votes are in, the jury of film professionals has made its decision, and the award winners will be announced tonight at the Stony Brook Film Festival's closing night reception and award ceremony.

All 150 award ceremony tickets sold out by Thursday, according to Julie Rulon Greene, the festival's marketing and publicity director. She said the movie screen will be raised following the last feature film and refreshments will be served on the Staller Center's stage, which will be lit by dramatic lighting. Film critic John Anderson will lead the award ceremony.

The audience choice ballots were counted by 12:00 a.m. Thursday. Whereas jury deliberations in past years lasted sometimes until three in the morning, this year the jury finished a bit earlier, around 1:30 a.m., according to festival director Alan Inkles.

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"The shorts went pretty quick," he said. "The feature jury, that was back and forth. I needed a referee jersey for that one."

Awards will be given for the audience's favorite feature and short film and for the jury's feature and short film selections. The award winners were notified Wednesday night via e-mail and Thursday morning via telephone, but Inkles said they don't know exactly which award they have won.

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He is expecting the reception to be a lively affair.

"It's just a great, fun night," he said.

Inkles said other festivals throw a closing night reception geared towards the philanthropists who supported those festivals. But Stony Brook's closing night party is centered not only around the award winners but also the filmgoers themselves.

"What's great about the party: people really want to know [who wins]," Inkles said. "Here the people howl because they've seen all the movies."

The final night of features includes the film The Concert at 6:00 p.m., followed by Mao's Last Dancer at 8:30 p.m.


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