June 11, 2018• byMichael Strangeways

Young actress ELSIE FISHER won the Golden Needle Best Actress award at the 2018 Seattle International Film Festival as did her film EIGHTH GRADE, which won best feature film. The film returns to SIFF’s Egyptian Cinema in July.

The 44th Seattle International Film Festival wrapped up Sunday night, June 10th after showcasing hundreds of films over the nearly month long festival including many LGBTQ films.

Winners were announced in numerous categories including multiple wins for EIGHTH GRADE (which returns to the Egyptian Theater in July) and the popular Mr. Rogers’ documentary WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? which will have an open ended run at SIFF’s Uptown Cinema beginning this Friday, June 15th. Other award winners will be screened over the next 10 days as part of SIFF’s annual BEST OF SIFF series.

Eighth Grade, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
WIN TOP AWARDS AT THE 44TH SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Eighth Grade wins Golden Space Needle Audience Awards for Best Film
Grand Jury Prizes go to The Reports on Sarah and Saleem, Dead Pigs, Rust,Inventing Tomorrow, and Thunder Road
Best Documentary goes to Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Elsie Fisher of Eighth Grade wins Best Actress
Miguel Ángel Solá of The Last Suit wins Best Actor

SEATTLE — June 10, 2018 — The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), the largest and most highly attended film festival in the United States, today announced the winners of the 2018 Golden Space Needle Audience and Competition Awards. The awards were presented at a ceremony and breakfast held at First & Bell. The 25-day Festival, which began May 17, featured over 400 films representing 90 countries, including 35 World premieres (6 features, 29 shorts), 46 North American premieres (32 features, 14 shorts), 25 US premieres (16 features, 9 shorts), and 750 Festival screenings and events. Additionally, SIFF brought in nearly 400 filmmakers, actors, and industry professionals as guests of the Festival.

Artistic Director Beth Barrett said, “Executive Director Sarah Wilke and I were thrilled to present Ethan Hawke with the Festival’s Outstanding Achievement Award in Cinema before a screening of Blaze, his latest directing effort, as well as welcoming Melanie Lynskey back to the Festival for a special screening of Seattle based local film, Sadie. We also had an incredible lineup of local films, and our documentary film selection continues to be among the best in the country. Back for the second year was SIFF’s New Works-in-Progress Forum, where we screened two narrative and two documentary features in the midst of their creative process to the Seattle audience of industry and festival attendees, as well as continuing our exploration of the intersections between cinema and Virtual Reality at our first Pop-up event, SIFF VR Zone at Pacific Place.”

The Best of SIFF lineup will be announced later today and SIFF’s five cinema screens will resume daily cinema service with Best of SIFF titles and other outstanding cinematic experiences beginning Friday, June 15.

2018 GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD WINNERS

SIFF celebrates its films and filmmakers with the Golden Space Needle Audience Awards. Selected by Festival audiences, awards are given in six categories: Best Film, Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Short Film. This year, over 80,000 ballots were submitted.

The 2018 Golden Space Needle Awards are created by Seattle Artist, Piper O’Neill. More about O’Neill atpiperoneill.net.

GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD – BEST FILM
Eighth Grade, directed by Bo Burnham (USA 2018)
First runner-up: The Last Suit, directed by Pablo Solarz (Argentina/Poland/Spain/France/Germany 2017)
Second runner-up: Champions, directed by Javier Fesser (Spain 2018)
Third runner-up: C’est la vie!, directed by Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano (France/Canada/Belgium 2017)
Fourth runner-up: Supa Modo, directed by Likarion Wainaina (Kenya/Germany 2018)

GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD – BEST DOCUMENTARY
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, directed by Morgan Neville (USA 2018)
First runner-up: Pick of the Litter, directed by Don Hardy Jr., Dana Nachman (USA 2017)
Second runner-up: Return to Mount Kennedy, directed by Eric Becker (USA 2018)
Third runner-up: The Most Dangerous Year, directed by Vlada Knowlton (USA 2018)
Fourth runner-up: The Russian Five, directed by Joshua Riehl (USA 2018)

GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD – BEST DIRECTOR
Gustav Möller, The Guilty (Denmark 2018)
First runner-up: Pablo Solarz, The Last Suit (Argentina/Poland/Spain/France/Germany 2017)
Second runner-up: Megan Griffiths, Sadie (USA 2018)
Third runner-up: Debra Granik, Leave No Trace (USA 2018)
Fourth runner-up: Albert Dupontel, See You Up There (France 2017)

GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD – BEST ACTOR
Miguel Ángel Solá, The Last Suit (Argentina/Poland/Spain/France/Germany 2017)
First runner-up: Jakob Cedergren, The Guilty (Denmark 2018)
Second runner-up: Ethan Hawke, First Reformed (USA 2017)
Third runner-up: Jim Cummings, Thunder Road (USA 2018)
Fourth runner-up: Ben Foster, Leave No Trace (USA 2018)

GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD – BEST ACTRESS
Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade (USA 2018)
First runner-up: Rhaechyl Walker, My Name is Myeisha (USA 2018)
Second runner-up: Sophia Mitri Schloss, Sadie (USA 2018)
Third runner-up: Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Leave No Trace (USA 2018)
Fourth runner-up: Ana Brun, The Heiresses (Paraguay/Uruguay/Germany/Brazil/Norway/France 2018)

GOLDEN SPACE NEEDLE AWARD – BEST SHORT FILM
Emergency, directed by Carey Williams (USA 2017)
First runner-up: About the Birds and the Bees, directed by J.J. Vanhanen (Finland 2017)
Second runner-up: Wishing Box, directed by Wenli Zhang, Nan Li (USA 2017)
Third runner-up: Cats Cradle, directed by Jonathan Napolitano (USA 2018)
Fourth runner-up: Wave, directed by Benjamin Cleary, TJ O’Grady Peyton (Ireland 2017)

LENA SHARPE AWARD FOR PERSISTENCE OF VISION
Presented by Women in Film – Seattle
Dana Nachman, Pick of the Litter (USA 2017)

This award is given to the female director’s film that receives the most votes in public balloting at the Festival. Lena Sharpe was co-founder and managing director of Seattle’s Festival of Films by Women Directors and a KCTS-TV associate who died in a plane crash while on assignment. As a tribute to her efforts in bringing the work of women filmmakers to prominence, SIFF created this special award and asked Women in Film – Seattle to bestow it.

For the complete list of winners go HERE!

AND, here are the films participating in this year’s BEST OF SIFF series screening over the next 10 days.

PLEASE NOTE: SIFF 2018 passes and vouchers are not valid for Best of SIFF screenings.

The Guilty

Golden Space Needle Award Best Director

This innovative, claustrophobic thriller takes place in an emergency call center, where a dispatcher receives a panicked distress call from a woman, leading to a frantic rescue mission with a phone as the only resource.

Friday, June 15 · 6:30 PM · SIFF Cinema Uptown

Thunder Road

Grand Jury Prize, New American Cinema

Multitalented writer/director/star Jim Cummings gives a jaw-dropping performance filled with bursts of offbeat humor and unexpected pathos as a small-town police officer struggling to process the death of his mother, an impending divorce, and his own unrecognized cluelessness.

Friday, June 15 · 8:45 PM · SIFF Cinema Uptown

The Last Suit

Golden Space Needle Award Best Actor

A heartfelt and charming journey begins when Abraham, a spry octogenarian tailor and Holocaust survivor leaves his Buenos Aires home on a one way trip across Europe in search of the man who once saved his life.

Sunday June 17 · 6:00 PM · SIFF Cinema Uptown

My Name is Myeisha

FutureWave Award
Winner

JUNE 15 · 4:30 PM · UPTOWN

The Russian Five

Audience Favorite

JUNE 16 · 4:00 PM · UPTOWN

Prospect

Audience Favorite

JUNE 16 · 6:30 PM · UPTOWN

Best of SIFF Shorts

Audience Favorites

JUNE 17 · 1:30 PM · UPTOWN

Pick of the Litter

Lena Sharpe Award

JUNE 17 · 3:45 PM · UPTOWN

Waru

Audience Favorite

JUNE 18 · 4:30 PM · UPTOWN

Best of SIFF Shorts

Jury Award Winners

JUNE 19 · 4:30 PM · UPTOWN

Supa Modo

Audience Favorite

JUNE 20 · 6:30 PM · UPTOWN

About the Author: Michael Strangeways

As the Editorial Director/Co-Owner, Michael Strangeways writes, edits and does about a million other jobs for Seattle Gay Scene, Puget Sound's most visited LGBTQ news, arts and entertainment website now celebrating its 14th year as a media outlet. A semi-proud Midwesterner by birth, he's lived in Seattle since 2000. He's also a film producer who would like you to check out the Jinkx Monsoon documentary, "Drag Becomes Him" now available on Amazon.com. In his spare time, he gets slightly obsessive about his love for old movies, challenging theater, "otters", vodka, chocolate, "I,Claudius", Lizzie Borden, real books made out of paper, disaster films, show tunes, Weimar era Germany, flea markets, pop surrealistic art, the sex lives of Hollywood actors both living and dead, kitties, chicken fried steak, haute couture and David Bowie. But, not necessarily in that order.