October 28, 2022• byMichael Strangeways

Three Dollar Bill Cinema has announced all the winners for this year’s Seattle Queer Film Festival which ran October 13th through the 23rd at venues around the city and online.

Awards have been announced for both those chosen by a Jury as well as those chosen by the audience.

This year’s festival, the 27th queer/LGBT festival produced by Three Dollar Bill, featured over 150 films from 27 different countries and included several premieres.

The jury choices were:

Gabriel Martins’ MARS ONE, Brazil’s entry for the Academy Award for Best International Feature, and Shariff Nasr’s EL HOUB tied for Best Narrative Feature. The jury noted, “EL HOUB’s vibrant uplift of Muslim queer stories reminds us that the more deeply personal stories are, the more relatable they are” and “MARS ONE queers family film in a deeply human way.”

BLACK AS U R, directed by Micheal Rice, was awarded the Best Documentary Award for its “depiction of the reality of living in the intersection of Black and LGBTQIA cultures without patronizing the members of the communities but, instead, provides a platform for conversation and advocacy.”

HOW TO DATE WHILE TRANS, directed by Nyala Moon, won the Best Short Film Award “because of its smart writing, universal appeal, and a perspective we don’t see very often.” This well-crafted rom-com short centers on a Black Trans woman navigating the perils of dating. This film has won multiple awards at film festivals, including Three Dollar Bill Cinema’s TRANSlations: Seattle Trans Film Festival.

Lorena Zilleruelo’s SOY NIÑO won the jury award for Best Youth Film for its “moving originality and compelling filmmaking that gives a glimpse into a life that has rarely been seen on screen.”

“Our jury award winners represent the diverse breadth and power of queer stories from across the globe,” said Three Dollar Bill Cinema’s Managing Director Billy Ray Brewton and Festival Artistic Director Kathleen Mullen in a joint statement. “As the LGBTQ+ community and our rights continue to be under attack, it is more important than ever to showcase and amplify queer imagery and storytelling on screen; representation that is integral to our vision of elevating the spectrum of queer stories to help create a just and equitable world.”

The Audience awarded top honors to these films:

Best Narrative Feature: GOLDEN DELICIOUS
Best Documentary Feature: NELLY & NADINE
Best Narrative Short: UNICORN
Best Documentary Short: SAINTMAKING

Three Dollar Bill Cinema also announced there would be encore screenings to occur next week online:

Three Dollar Bill Cinema will present a festival encore, including a selection of jury and audience awards winners and staff favorites from the 27th Seattle Queer Film Festival. The encore screenings will go on sale Friday, October 28 at threedollarbillcinema.org and will be available virtually November 4-6, 2022. Pay-what-you-can passes are on a sliding scale of $25-$50 and individual tickets start at $13. Passholders from the 2022 SQFF will receive free access to the encore screenings. The festival encore’s viewing footprint extends to all of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska. Audiences will have a 72-hour viewing window (after starting the film) to watch each program.

Complete List of Juried Awards and Honorable Mentions

Best Narrative Feature Winner (tie): EL HOUB, directed by Shariff Nasr (The Netherlands), and MARS ONE, directed by Gabriel Martins (Brazil)
Best Documentary Feature Winner: BLACK AS U R, directed by Micheal Rice (US)
Honorable Mention: FINDING HER BEAT, directed by Dawn Mikkelson & Keri Pickett (US) & WHAT THE FUNK?! directed by Adriana Guiman (US)
Best Youth FilmWinner – SOY NIÑO directed by Lorena Zilleruelo (US)
Honorable Mentions: GOLDEN DELICIOUS, directed by Jason Karman (Canada) & YOU CAN LIVE FOREVER, directed by Mark Slutsky & Sarah Watts (Canada)
Best Short FilmWinner: HOW NOT TO DATE WHILE TRANS, directed by Nyala Moon (US)
Honorable Mention: SAINTMAKING, directed by Marco Alessi (UK)

Juries

Narrative Features Jury: Joël Barraquiel Tan, Trent Farrington, Nina-Tuyen Tran
Documentary Features Jury: David Quantic, Andrea Krauss, Takiyah Ward
Short Film Jury: Isabella Price, Shawn Cotter. Ravenna Tran
Youth Features Jury: Nicole Billamil, Lindsay Sunada, Treesha Swami

Congratulations to all the winners and Three Dollar Bill Cinema on another successful festival!

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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.