Eden, Any Day Now Are the Big Winners at the 2012 Seattle International Film Festival

The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), the country’s largest in terms of both number of films screened and number of attendees, is over for another year. The 25-day fest, which kicked off May 17th, screened 460 films and brought in more than 300 directors, actors and industry professionals—some of whom now have a new award to place on their mantelpiece.

Among the films to be honored at yesterday’s Awards Brunch, two took home multiple awards: Travis Fine’s Any Day Now, which received the Golden Space Needle Audience Awards for Best Film and Best Actor (Alan Cumming), and the locally shot Eden, which won the Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Actress (Jamie Chung) in addition to grabbing the Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision for its director, Megan Griffiths, and winning the Reel NW Award (and the $2,500 prize that goes with it).

“A festival success is dependent on two basic principles: Providing a platform for filmmakers to be celebrated and connecting them to audience members that would not otherwise be aware of their remarkable stories,” notes SIFF artistic director Carl Spence. “This year a record number of filmmakers participated in person and online with virtual Q&As, successfully expanding the conversation around the best in cinema with passionate audiences, illuminating guests and distinguished industry in attendance.”

Other winners included Nicolas Provost’s The Invader, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Best New Director; Sonja Lindén’s Five Star Existence, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary; and Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill, winner of the FIPRESCI Prize for Best New American Film.

For a complete list of winners and to find out more about the 38th annual Seattle International Film Festival and the films that screened there, visit www.siff.net.