Audience Choice Awards — The Nashville Film Festival announced the winners of the Southwest Airlines Audience Choice Awards in the narrative, documentary, and Graveshift Shift categories.  In the narrative category, the winner is “The First Grader,” the inspiring true story of an 84-year old man in Kenya who returns to first grade to learn to read.

There was a tie in the documentary category.  Sharing the Southwest Airlines Audience Choice Award were “Wish Me Away,” the coming-out documentary about country singer Chely Wright, and “Most Valuable Players,” the story of high school theater troupes in Pennsylvania vying for the prestigious Freddy Awards.

In the Graveyard Shift category, the winner was director Andre Ovredal’s “The Troll Hunter,” a narrative feature about a high school film crew that discovers that the man they think is poaching bears is actually hunting down trolls.

Congratulations to all of the winners!

Nashville.com “Best of Show” Awards – With all of the awards being given out, I thought I’d include my two cents by giving out the Nashville.com ‘Best of Show” awards for best feature and documentary films at this year’s Nashville Film Festival.  The caveat that goes along with these awards is that I didn’t see every single film at the festival, but I saw a lot.  So the films being considered for the awards are only those I actually saw with my own eyes.  With that caveat, here are the winners of the first ever Nashville.com “Best of Show” Awards:

“The First Grader” is the winner in the Narrative Feature Category. Everything about the film was inspiring.  It was extremely well done and was a joy to watch.

Honarble mention in the Narrative Category goes to “Kinyarwanda,” the film from director Alrick Brown that interweaves six stories about the genocide in Rwanda into a single narrative.  Exremely well done.

In the Documentary Category, the winner is “Most Valuable Players.” It was extremely entertaining without any fluff.  The director started with a good story and he told that story in a very powerful and entertaining way.

“Happy on the Ground” earns honorable mention in this category.  The film follows high school students as they go to an 8-day Grammy Camp for aspiring musicians.

That’s it for me.  I’ve enjoyed covering the 2011 Nashville Film Festival for you.  It was a great experience and the film festival itself was a great success.  I can hardly wait for next year.