Daily Dead was proud to once again sponsor and experience this year's Overlook Film Festival, which took place in the historic (and quite possibly haunted) confines of New Orleans. And with another year of immersive events, essential screenings, and live performances in the books, the Overlook Film Festival's 2019 audience and juried awards have been announced, and we've been provided with the full list to share with Daily Dead readers.

Press Release: (NEW ORLEANS, LA) - The Overlook Film Festival 2019 has come to an end on Sunday, June 2nd after bringing four days of horror films, immersive games, VR exhibitions, panels and workshops in New Orleans. The festival reached an audience of over 3000 people and hosted over 60 filmmakers, actors, and producers including Elijah WoodRobert RodriguezMick GarrisChelsea Stardust, and Paul Scheer over the weekend.

The Overlook Features Jury; Rolling Stone’s Film/TV editor David Fear; writer, director and fashion photographer Carter Smith; and BuzzFeed News’ critic & culture writer Alison Willmore have reviewed 23 feature-length filmsduring the festival and awarded the Overlook 2019 Jury Award to THE VAST OF NIGHT, directed by first time filmmaker Andrew Patterson, stating that the film was "An impressive work of low-budget ingenuity and watch-the-skies paranoia, as well an incredible retro riff on 'Close Encounters' — just a great example of how to take a genre storyline and run with it."

The jury also awarded DACHRA as the Scariest Film of Overlook 2019, stating that "This Tunisian movie begins as an austere, impeccably framed tale of three students investigating an urban legend about a witch, before opting for full-blown Raimi-esque craziness. The fact that i's remarkably unnerving and frightening in both modes speaks to how well it gets under your skin and stays there."

Last but not the least, the features jury awarded an Honorable Mention to ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, directed by Shinichiro Ueda stating that "You think you're watching an amateurish, gonzo horror movie about a crew filming a zombie movie, only to be attacked by real zombies — and then Japanese director Shinichiro Ueda flips the script and turns his hit film into a loving tribute to the art of making amateurish, gonzo horror movies. It felt like the perfect movie to see at a festival devoted to the folks who live to scare the shit of you and those of us who love them."

Overlook 2019 Shorts Jury members were filmmaker and artist Garrett BradleyAmy Nicholson, a filmmaker and critic for Variety, the Guardian and the Washington Post; and Jolene Pinder, Executive Director of Kartemquin Films. The shorts jury reviewed 18 films and gave the Shorts Jury Award to VALERIO’S DAY OUT, saying that “the film pushes the boundaries of horror through the lens of one carnivorous protagonist who was born to kill....what is horror to us is nature to him.”

The Scariest Short Film Award went to NOSE NOSE NOSE EYES!, directed by Jiwon Moon because “the film starts hushed but cranks up the agony with an outrageous mother performance that turns the terror up to 11.”

The Shorts Jury also awarded an Honorable Mention to UNDER COVERS, directed by Michaela Olsen.

The Feature Film Audience Award went to ONE CUT OF THE DEADdirected by Shinichiro Ueda, while the runner up went to THE VAST NIGHTdirected by Andrew PattersonThe Audience Award for Short Film went to NOSE NOSE NOSE EYES!, directed by Jiwon Moon. with the runner up being SUICIDE BY SUNLIGHT directed by Nikyatu Jusu. Please see more information about award winning films and jury members below.

FEATURE AWARDS

Jury Award:
The Vast Of Night
Director: Andrew Patterson
Cast: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, Bruce Davis
United States, 2019
First-time filmmaker Andrew Patterson smashes onto the scene with the elegant telling of a 1950s radio DJ and his switchboard operator companion, who stumble upon a strange frequency that may be carrying evidence of other-worldly life.

Scariest Film:
Dachra
Director: Abdelhamid Bouchnak
Cast: Yasmine Dimassi, Aziz Jbali, Bilel Slatnia, Hela Ayed
Tunisia, 2018
When a trio of Tunisian journalism students hubristically journey to a small town to solve the 25-year-old cold case of a mysteriously mutilated woman now committed to an asylum, they come upon a community packed with well-spiced secrets.

Honorable Mention:
One Cut Of The Dead
Director: Shinichiro Ueda
Cast: Takayuki Hamatsu, Mao, Harumi Shuhama, Kazuaki Nagaya, Manabu Hosoi, Hiroshi Ichihara, Syuntaro Yamazaki
Japan, 2017
In one of the year's most crowd-pleasing surprises, this twisty horror comedy sees chaos ensue when a low-budget film crew, hard at work on a zombie flick in a WWII bunker, comes face to face with real terror lurking outside.

SHORT AWARDS

Short Film Jury Prize:
Valerio’s Day Out
Director: Michael Arcos
Cast: Monika Leska (narration)
United States, 2019
News reports only told one side of this escaped jaguar’s story; Valerio's truth comes out by way of his utterly trance-inducing narration—like only the best of sympathetic serial killers.

Scariest Short:
Nose Nose Nose EYES!
Director: Jiwon Moon
Cast: Juyeong Lee, Jayeong Kim, Jungse Oh
South Korea, 2017
Mother Dearest never seemed so sweetly cruel in this horror of Grand Guignol proportions.

Honorable Mention:
Under Covers
Director: Michaela Olsen
Cast: Jade Shames (voiceover/hand model), Dylan Stephen Levers (voiceover/hand model)
United States, 2019
The unmatched artistry of this stop-motion animation runs the creative gamut with its multiple vignettes and delightfully twisted characters.

FEATURE FILM JURY
David Fear
David Fear is the Film/TV Editor of Rolling Stone and was a critic/editor at Time Out New York from 2004 to 2013. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Village Voice, Film Comment, Spin, NY Daily News, Blender, Moviemaker, Nashville Scene and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among others. He's a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, and lives in Brooklyn, as all writers must.

Carter Smith
Carter Smith is a writer, director and fashion photographer who splits his time between NYC and a tiny island in Maine. His first short film BUGCRUSH, won the jury award at Sundance in 2006 and went on to disturb way more people than he ever imagined possible. He then directed THE RUINS for Dreamworks before writing and directing JAMIE MARKS IS DEAD which premiered in dramatic competition at Sundance in 2016.

Alison Willmore
Alison Willmore is a critic and culture writer at BuzzFeed News. In her past life as the TV editor at Indiewire, she helped launch the site's television coverage. Her writing has also appeared in the AV Club, Salon, Time Out New York, and Movieline.

SHORT FILM JURY
Garrett Bradley
Garrett Bradley works in a variety of platforms most of which explore socio-economic injustice, human conflict, historical reflection, place-based adventure, and the beauty that is plainly in view. A grantee of the 2019 Creative Capital Fellowship, she has received numerous prizes - including the 2017 Sundance Jury Prize for the short film Alone, and is one of 75 artists selected in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Bradley is the co-founder of Creative Council, an artist lead after-school program aimed at developing strong college portfolios and applications for students attending public high schools in New Orleans.

Amy Nicholson
Amy Nicholson is a film writer and critic for Variety, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, and the host of the movie podcasts ""Unspooled," "Zoom," "The Canon," and "Halloween Unmasked." Her first book, Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor, was published by Cahiers du Cinema.

Jolene Pinder
Jolene Pinder is a New Orleans-based documentary producer and currently serves as the Executive Director of #CreateLouisiana, a grantmaking organization designed to champion Louisiana talent in film. Prior to this role, she served as the Executive Director of the New Orleans Film Society—the producer of the Oscar-qualifying New Orleans Film Festival—for six years. She is currently producing the documentary feature Hollow Tree, a recipient of development funding from the Sundance Documentary Film Program, Fork Films, and the International Documentary Association.

To keep up to date with The Overlook Film Festival, visit overlookfilmfest.com

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About The Overlook Film Festival
The Overlook Film Festival is a 4-day celebration of horror that runs from May 30th - June 2nd, 2019 at historic & iconic venues throughout New Orleans. Presenting superior film programming with an expanded focus on experiential events, the festival showcases exciting work in new and classic horror cinema alongside the latest in interactive and live shows for a fully immersive weekend. As a summer camp for genre fans, The Overlook is a community event bringing the best of horror in all its forms to an enthusiastic and appreciative audience within an intimate and inspirational environment.

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.