Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Belfast’ wins top audience award at 44th Mill Valley Film Festival

• G. Allen Johnson
• 3 years ago

“Belfast,” Kenneth Branagh’s mostly black-and-white memory piece about a boy growing up in 1960s Northern Ireland during the Troubles, captured the 44th Mill Valley Film Festival’s top prize, the Overall Audience Favorite award.

“When the (pandemic) lockdown started, it was a period of introspection,” Branagh told The Chronicle, before the awards were made public. “The planes stopped flying, much less traffic, there was a lot more silence. Suddenly, my brain was staring into that silence, and it became filled with the sounds of Belfast. I realized I wanted to look at this moment in my life and see whether I could understand it better. …

“I began to feel that maybe this was a story that people would recognize, it wouldn’t just be about me doing some internal therapy.”

“Belfast” was one of eight films to capture the Audience Favorite award for the festival, which concluded its 11-day run on Sunday, Oct. 17. The awards, based on audience balloting after festival screenings, were announced Tuesday, Oct. 19.

“The Rescue,”  a thrilling retelling of the daring rescue of a dozen boys trapped in a flooded Thailand cave directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, won the festival’s top Audience Favorite Documentary award.

There was a strong local connection to many of the award winners:

• Former Berkeley resident Mike Mills’ road movie starring Joaquin Phoenix, “C’mon, C’mon,” won the U.S. Cinema prize.
• Chris J. Russo’s “Lady Buds,” a documentary about women in the cannabis industry, is set in the Bay Area and Humboldt County and won in the festival’s Mind the Gap category for marginalized filmmakers.
• Sebastopol director Emmett Brennan’s environmental documentary “Reflection: A Walk With Water” won in the Active Cinema category
• Former Mission resident Lissette Feliciano’s “Women Is Losers,” about a Catholic girl  in 1960s San Francisco, won in the ¡Viva El Cine! category for Latin American, Latinx and Spanish-language stories.
• Amitabh Reza Chowdhury’s “Rickshaw Girl,” about a Bangladeshi girl who attempts to help her struggling family by disguising herself as a boy and driving her father’s prized rickshaw, won in the Family category. It is based on Martinez author Mitali Perkins’ young adult novel and was produced by Sonoma County resident Eric J. Adams.

Feliciano told The Chronicle that with “Women Is Losers,” which begins streaming on HBO Max on Monday, Oct. 25, she wanted to show a part of San Francisco not usually represented in popular culture.

“I was really tired of seeing movies (set) in San Francisco that had cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge, because if you are poor and you live in San Francisco, you maybe go there on a field trip,” she said. “It was important to show a side of San Francisco that real people live in.”

The full Audience Favorites list, with directors:

Overall: “Belfast,” Kenneth Branagh

U.S. Cinema: “C’mon, C’mon,” Mike Mills

World Cinema: “The Last Film Show,” Pan Nalin

Documentary: “The Rescue,” Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Active Cinema: “Reflection: A Walk With Water,” Emmett Brennan

Mind the Gap: “Lady Buds,” Chris J. Russo

¡Viva El Cine!: “Women Is Losers,” Lissette Feliciano

Family: “Rickshaw Girl,” Amitabh Reza Chowdhury