Earlier this week, the Beaufort Film Society announced the Official Selections for the 2022 Beaufort International Film Festival which takes place Feb. 22-27, 2022 here in Beaufort. The 2022 edition of the festival will feature 10 World Premieres and an additional 42 films that will make their South Carolina debuts.
The society also announced that the festival will include an inaugural Rising Star Award with the recipient being [Beaufort] South Carolina native Simeon Daise, who first appeared in Gullah, Gullah Island with his family and parents, Natalie & Ron Daise. The show aired on Nickelodeon in the 1990s and was based off of the Gullah culture and St. Helena Island, where his father Ron Daise grew up.
A graduate of Beaufort High School, Simeon’s more recent credits include Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots; BET’s The Bobby Brown Story; BET’s American Soul, and CW’s All American, as well as the Disney movie Cheaper By The Dozen. Simeon also has a directing and a writing credit under his belt, too.
Also, the prestigious Behind the Scenes Award recipient will be Casting Agent Tona B. Dahlquist from Charleston, SC. Tona has more than 50 television and film credits from her 30-plus years in the entertainment industry. Top titles include Forrest Gump, Iron Man 3, Halloween, Homeland, Righteous Gemstones and The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
The Film Festival will also present the Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement Award to both John Bailey, immediate Past President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), and his wife Carol Littleton, past member of the AMPAS Board of Governors. They will be the first-ever co-honorees of the award.
Cinematographer John Bailey has a vast body of work that includes films The Big Chill, American Gigolo, As Good As It Gets, Silverado, The Accidental Tourist, Country Strong, In The Line of Fire and Groundhog Day. He has served on the Board of Governors of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and on the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board. He was previously honored with a special artistic achievement award from the Cannes Film Festival in 1985 for the Japanese film Mishima, the Lifetime Achievement Award by the ASC in 2016, and was made an Officier des Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, he received both the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gianni di Venanzo Festival in Teramo, Italy and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Camerimage International Film Festival in Torun, Poland.
Carol Littleton is an Oscar-nominated editor with a similarly impressive resume of 38 films including The Big Chill, E.T., Silverado, Beloved, Grand Canyon, Benny & Joon, Body Heat, Wyatt Earp, The Accidental Tourist and The Manchurian Candidate. Carol won an Emmy for Tuesdays with Morrie and she received a Career Achievement Award in 2016 from American Cinema Editors (ACE). Her Oscar nomination was for E.T. Extra Terrestrial. Carol served as an Academy Governor of the Film Editors branch for 12 years and is currently on its executive committee.
The Official Selections are:
ANIMATION
About Love
Directed by: Hanke Wang, Savannah, GA
A Change of Song
Directed by: Gordon David LePage, New Sharon, ME
John Henry
Directed by: David Donar, Anderson, SC
The Ghostly Lovers of Fripp Island
Directed by: Jim Sidletsky, Beaufort, SC
There You Are
Directed by: Rui Huang, Los Angeles, CA
DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
American Royalty
Directed by: Daniel Fisher and Stephen Fisher, Lexington, SC
Little Satchmo
Directed by: John Alexander, Los Angeles, CA
Song For Hope
Directed by: Chris Haigh, Northridge, CA
The Book Keepers
Directed: Phil Wall, Brooklyn, NY
The Long Rider
Directed by: Sean Cisterna, Ontario Canada
DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
Meltdown In Dixie
Directed by: Emily Harrold, New York, NY
Sacred Waters: The Okefenokee In Peril
Directed by: Mark Albertin, Augusta, GA
Storefront: Statesboro Blues
Directed by: Jonathan Hunt, Savannah, GA
DUTY & HONOR
Last Patrol On Okinawa
Directed by: Nick Brokaw, Los Angeles, CA
The Donut Dollies
Directed by: Norman Anderson, Los Angeles, CA
Veterans Journey Home: Leaving It On the Land
Directed by: Frederick Marx, Oakland, CA
FEATURES
Fires in the Dark
Directed by: Dominique Lienhard, Munich, Germany
Re-Opening
Directed by: Chris Guerra and Matthew John Koppin, Burbank, CA
Seven Days Till Midnight
Directed by: James Suttles, Martin, OH
SHORT FILMS
:60 Seconds
Directed by: John “Quiq” Quigley, Hermosa Beach, CA
All That Glitters
Directed by: Dan Bronzite, Essex, United Kingdom
American Morning
Directed by: Robbie Bryan, Scott Plains, NJ
Are You My Mommy
Directed by: Gavin Michael Booth, North Hollywood, CA
Broken
Directed by: Jillian Reeves, Sherman Oaks, CA
Chords
Directed by: John Barnhardt, Fort Collins, CO
Chrysalis
Directed by: Arturo Zuniga, Los Angeles, CA
Consider the Sparrow
Directed by: Eliza Foss, New York, NY
Gregory
Directed by: Ben McHugh, New York, NY
Guest of Honor
Directed by: Lisa Belcher, Austin, TX
Hell in a Handbasket
Directed by: Lee Chambers, Regina Saskatchewan Canada
His & Hers
Directed by: Chris Sexton Fletcher, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
In the Event of My Death
Directed by: Brian Scott Steele, Los Angeles, CA
Good Men and Unicorns
Directed by: Jake Ebright, Los Angeles, CA
Kepley
Directed by: Stephanie Katherine Grant and Michael Grant, Toluca Lake, CA
Last Laugh
Directed by: Paul Anderson, New York, NY
Little Games
Directed by: Stefane Houssier, Wheathampstead, United Kingdom
On My Mind
Directed by: Martin Strange-Hansen, Bronshoj, Denmark
Over My Dead Body
Directed by: Meital Cohen Navarro, Los Angeles, CA
Pap’s Manifesto
Directed by: Chris Danuser and Casey Clark, Maplewood, NJ
Stuck
Directed by: Steve Blackwood, Newburyport, MA
That Feeling
Directed by: Paul Inman, Conway, SC
The Della Morte Sisters
Directed by: Bill Sorvino, New York, NY
The Dinner Guest
Directed by: Dale Griffiths Stamos, Santa Barbara, CA
The Flipside
Directed by: Mark Bradley, Eliza Dennis, and Rebecca Pryce, Charleston, SC
The Killer Across the Street
Directed by: Adam Seccafico, Englishtown, NJ
Turning Blue
Directed by: Dana White and Christopher Knoblock, Willoughby Hills, OH
Western Exit
Directed by: Scott Ballard, Portland, OR
When the Rain Sets In
Directed by: James Hughes, London, United Kingdom
STUDENT FILMS
Lavender
Directed by: Eli Saliba, Fayetteville, GA (University of Georgia)
Life, Again
Directed by: Anna Maite Kaplan and Orion Huang, Orange, CA (Dodge College)
Solitude
Directed by: Henry Daemen, Oakville, Ontario (Sheridan College)
The Pomegranate Tree
Directed by: Kanika Vora, Orange, CA (Dodge College)
Winter of ‘79
Directed by: Julia Elihu, Orange, CA (Dodge College)
Screenplay
Concrete Wings
by: Bev Gandara, Myrtle Beach, SC
Geneva
by: Genevieve McDevitt, Fort Mill, SC
Immigrants
by: David Weissman and David Diamond, Los Angeles, CA
Stealing the Moon
by: Eric Carlson, Richmond, VA
Valley of the Spirits
by: Warren R. Hull and K. D. Clemmens, Las Vegas, NV
BEST COMEDY – NOMINATIONS
Are You My Mommy
Hell in a Handbasket
His & Hers
In the Event of My Death
Last Laugh
Re-Opening
Stuck
The Killer Across the Street
Western Exit
BEST ACTOR – NOMINATIONS
Stephen Dexter (American Morning)
Rasmus Hammerich (On My Mind)
R. Keith Harris (Seven Days Till Midnight)
Lukas Hassel (Guest of Honor)
David Triacca (Pap’s Manifesto)
BEST ACTRESS – NOMINATIONS
Lisa Belcher (Guest of Honor)
Ana Giradot (Fires In the Dark)
Molly Leland (The Dinner Guest)
Sophia Myles (All That Glitters)
Jillian Reeves (Broken)
BEST DIRECTOR – NOMINATIONS
Gavin Michael Booth (Are You My Mommy )
Chris Haigh (Song for Hope)
Meitel Cohen Navarro (Over My Dead Body )
Bill Sorvino (The Della Morte Sisters )
Martin Strange-Hansen (On My Mind)
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST – NOMINATIONS
Consider the Sparrow
Last Laugh
On My Mind
Over My Dead Body
The Della Morte Sisters
The Dinner Guest
BEST MUSICAL SCORE – NOMINATION
Donut Dollies
Music by: Jim Gardner
Chords
Music by: Daniel Jones / Christine Alice / Armchair Martian
Last Patrol On Okinawa
Music by: Jon Monroe
Song For Hope
Music by: Anthony Di Lorenzo
The Della Morte Sisters
Music by: Michael Vignola
The Flipside
Music by: Mark Bryan
Winter of ’79
Music by: Raphael Dargent (PHAR)
When the Rain Sets In
Music by: Jean-Pascal Beintus
The 2022 Beaufort International Film Festival takes place from February 22-27, 2022 and you can purchase your tickets to the opening ceremony, film screenings and the awards ceremony at beaufortfilmfestival.com.
