Raindance Film Festival Announce 2024 Winners

The 2024 Raindance Film Festival will end tomorrow, today we learned about this year’s award winners.

The 32nd Raindance Film Festival is the first year, the awards system has this year been overhauled to reflect the festival’s newly defined focus on emerging filmmakers. Honouring those features by debut and second-time filmmakers in five categories: Discovery Award for Debut Feature, Best International Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best Debut Director, Best Performance in a Debut Feature.

Additionally, films screening out of official competition in the Founders Strand qualify for the Spirit Of Raindance award. An Oscar® qualifying festival, Raindance further honours the work of short filmmakers with four awards.

Discovery Award for Debut Feature winner this year went to Korean psychological thriller Sleep. Jason Yu’s film marked the final film role for acclaimed Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun (Train to Busan, Kim Ji-young: Born 1982) playing a young expectant wife who must figure out how to stop her husband’s nightmarish sleepwalking habits before he harms himself or his family.

The Best International Feature went to Brandt Anderson‘s The Stranger’s Case. Tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo, starting a chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries. Winner of the Amnesty International Film Prize at Berlin, it’s a familiar yet sadly topical story told from numerous perspectives.

Best Documentary Feature went to Debra Aroko and Nicole Gormley‘s Searching For Amani. In search of truth and redemption, a 13-year-old boy investigates his father’s tragic murder within the boundaries of one of Kenya’s largest wildlife conservancies.

Luke Gifford won Best Debut Feature with his National Anthem. A soft-spoken construction worker accepts job with a vibrant community of queer rodeo performers and forges the confidence to explore his own identity. Writer/director Luke Gilford sets his exhilarating reinvention of the coming-of-age story against stunning landscapes, boldly reimagining an exploration of first love, found family, and self-discovery.

Best Debut Performance Paula Grimaldo with The Quiet Mad. The Raindance Spirit Award went to Documentary Dog War all about the battle to stop the Dog Meat farms in South Korea.

Raindance is an Oscar-qualifying festival. This means the recipients of Best Live Action Short, Best Documentary Short, and Best Animation Short are eligible for consideration for the Academy Awards. Alex Lora‘s The Masterpiece winning Best Action Short, Best Documentary Short went to Spencer MacDonald‘s A Boy Called Life. Charalambos Margaritis’s 74 winning Best Animated Short with Liam White’s Housewarming winning Best UK Short.

A new award was introduced this year Rainmaker Award which was won by Thompson Dean. Honouring allies of independent film, Dean commented: “It’s my honour to Raindance’s trailblazing work, and assist in its mission to discover, champion, and be the voice of independent film, at home here in the UK and abroad.”