SAICFF Saturday Report

Today is the day that the Jubilee Awards ceremony is held. Over 200 films were submitted, and tonight the field was narrowed down to one Best of Festival Jubilee Award Winner, who received a check for $101,000. But first, there were more films to be seen. First thing in the morning, Rescue Haiti’s Children sponsored a screening of ‘Rescued: The Movie’ and included a celebration and testimony of families who have adopted children from around the world. The big surprise of the week turned out to be Seasons of Grey. The reactions I got ranged from, I had never heard of this film until watching it today, to I was looking forward to it, and it blew my expectations out of the water. Just before dinner, Geoff Botkin gave us a look at how his family views films together, by taking through a few minutes of the film, “How to Train Your Dragon.”

The Jubilee Awards ceremony began at 7:30 p.m., with performances again by Charlie Zahm and George Sarris. Soon, awards began to be announced. ‘Lady Jane Grey’ took runner up in the Short film category, and ‘The Jester’ took the Short Film Chrystal Award. In Great Commission, ‘The Koren: Forgotten but not Forsaken’ took runner up, and Two Hats was awarded the Great Commission Jubilee Award. ‘Crying Wolf,’ which has been highly acclaimed all week, was awarded the Jubilee award in the Creation division, and ‘Check This Out’ came in as runner up. After a brief break to watch some the Hazardous Journeys trilogy of shorts again, the Best Feature announcement was made. Unsurprisingly, Courageous took the Jubilee trophy, and slightly more surprising, 7 Days in Utopia took the runner up. Two great films by Colin Gunn headlined the Documentary category, Captivated (which took runner up) and Indoctrination (which received the Jubilee award).

Finally, the two most hotly anticipated awards were announced: Audience Choice, and the $101,000 Best of Festival award. The Audience choice film won by a landslide—it went to ‘Seasons of Grey.’ This feature about a modern day Joseph will have a theatrical release soon. The runner up for the Best of Festival award went to IndoctriNation, and the winner of the 2012 SAICFF $101,000 best of festival award went to Courageous! The film from the Kendrick brothers has been at the top of the DVD sales leader board for some time. If the Oscars snubbed George Lucas when he produced the evolutionary but best-selling masterpiece Star Wars, the Christians will not make the same mistake. Courage has triumphed!

In Christ,

Jonathan Potter