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Overlook Film Festival Announces 2023 Award Winners
David Dastmalchian in Late Night with the Devil. The Overlook Film Festival announces today the films that won both Jury and Audience Awards during the 2023 edition. The seventh iteration of the horror-fueled festival took place from March 30 through April 2 in New Orleans, featuring over 50 films from 12 countries. This was an especially vital year for the festival, boasting 45 sold out screenings, 110 filmmaker guests appearing in-person and approximately 5,000 audience members in attendance.
Two feature films were granted Audience Awards this year: first place went to Australian filmmakers Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes ’70s TV talkshow spoof Late Night with the Devil. The runner-up was writer-director Alexis Jacknow’s Dianna Agron-starring, Hulu-bound feature debut Clock. Director Brooke H. Cellars’s Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead seized the top spot for short films, while Michael Schwartz’s Snatched secured runner-up status.
The Short Film Jury—comprised of filmmaker Greg Gilreath (Divide/Conquer), Sundance Film Festival programmer Ash Hoyle and Fangoria journalist Angel Melanson—honored four films in total. Best Short Film was similarly granted to Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead, with an honorable mention reserved for Fidel Ruiz-Healy and Tyler Walker’s Dead Enders. Virat Pal’s Night of the Bride was deemed Scariest Short, and the Special Jury Prize for Creative Vision was given to director Fredrik S. Hana’s FROM.BEYOND.
In a press release, the Short Film Jury stated: “This year’s slate of Overlook short films were marvels of ingenuity. Genre is a liberating organizing principle for filmmakers, and the range of complete creative visions on display was inspiring and invigorating.”
Find out more about the winning films below, and be on the lookout for more Overlook coverage on the site from Web Editor Natalia Keogan, who was on the ground in New Orleans this year.
Audience Awards
Winner — Feature Film
Late Night with the Devil
Directors: Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes
Cast: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Fayssal Bazzi, Ian Bliss, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Josh Quong Tart, Georgina Haig
Australia, 2023
Desperate for ratings, a Seventies-era late night talk show host invites a skeptic, a doctor and a young girl supposedly possessed by the devil for a very special Halloween episode. By the end of the show, his horrified audience would learn one awful truth: Evil doesn’t take commercial breaks.
Runner-Up — Feature Film
Clock
WORLD PREMIERE
Director: Alexis Jacknow
Cast: Dianna Agron, Jay Ali, Melora Hardin
United States, 2023
On the eve of her birthday, a woman desperately attempts to fix her broken biological clock, but at what cost? Featuring a powerhouse turn from Dianna Agron (Shiva Baby), this cautionary tale warns that when the pressure to conform mounts beyond reason, something’s going to break.
Winner — Short Film
Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead, Dir. Brooke H. Cellars, United States, 2022
One night at her mortuary salon, Violet receives a visit from a new client and discovers that sometimes a person feels they cannot authentically live their best life until after they’re dead.
Runner-Up — Short Film
Snatched, Dir. Michael Schwartz, United States, 2022
After coming out as gay, a 15-year-old boy must fight for his life when his parents react with otherworldly acceptance.
Juried Awards
Best Short Film
Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead, Dir. Brooke H. Cellars, United States, 2022
One night at her mortuary salon, Violet receives a visit from a new client and discovers that sometimes a person feels they cannot authentically live their best life until after they’re dead.
Honorable Mention
Dead Enders, Dir. Fidel Ruiz-Healy, Tyler Walker, United States, 2023
A disaffected, young gas-station clerk on the midnight shift must learn to give a damn about something after malevolent mind-controlling bugs are set loose by irresponsible oil drillers.
Scariest Short
Night of the Bride, Dir. Virat Pal, India, 2022
A young woman’s cries for help fall on deaf ears as a family holds her hostage, desperate to get their only son married through whatever sinister means necessary.
Special Jury Prize for Creative Vision
FROM.BEYOND, Dir. Fredrik S. Hana, Norway, 2022
This kaleidoscopic vision portrays mankind’s first meeting with alien life, told through faux archival footage combined with practical FX, miniatures and old school in-camera trickery.
