LIMINAL
by STEPHEN KEEP MILLS - Best Actress: Tonya Cornelisse

First of all let me tell you how very happy and honored I am for LIMINAL to have been selected into the Chicago Short Film Festival. It's an even greater honor and delight that Tonya Cornelisse has been recognized for Actress Performance.

Tonya is fearless and from the moment she walked in to the auditions I felt I was confronting a special creative power, an actor who would take on the story intuitively and with an incredibly truthful dramatic flair.

The story was originally a conflict between a man and a woman, but because of Tonya's haunting and dominating presence, I asked her at the final callbacks to read the man's role instead. She did and changed the story from a domestic encounter to an interior, psychological struggle she became the other woman's antagonist, her shadow, the force inside whose purpose was to destroy. Much more interesting to me than the familiar fight between the sexes was this newborn fight within.

I haven't had the experience where an actor changed my mind like that. She brought surprise and complete commitment. We rehearsed 50 hours before we brought in the camera.

THE COLOURS OF BLACK
by ALBERTO NACCI - Best Art Direction

Alberto Nacci is a multi-awarded director in several film festivals of the Annual Program Without Frontiers.

He interprets the silences and the sounds produced by the great artist, recently died, Mario Benedetti during the last step of realize an artwork:

the gestures which transform the inert paper into the work of a true artist become...  music!

Alberto Nacci