Best Feature EDE Audience Award Laurel (black)

DCEFF Audience Award

for Best Feature Film

The DCEFF Audience Awards for best feature and best short were established for the 2021 Virtual Festival and allow our audience to make their voices heard by voting on which films they enjoyed the most. $3,000 is awarded each year to the winner of our Best Feature category, and $2,000 is awarded to the winner of our Best Short category. In 2023, audience voting took place during the virtual Earth Day Encores programming (April 18-23).

2023 Winner

The Plastic Bag Store

Director: Robin Frohardt (US, 2022, 58mins)

An adaption of the critically-acclaimed art installation, this unique film takes viewers on a journey across time for a wistful look at the future of our planet.

Inventive puppetry, shadow play, and intricate handmade sets tell the darkly comedic, sometimes tender story of how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.

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Best Short EDE Audience Award (Black)

DCEFF Audience Award

for Best Short Film

The DCEFF Audience Awards for best feature and best short were established for the 2021 Virtual Festival and allow our audience to make their voices heard by voting on which films they enjoyed the most. $3,000 is awarded each year to the winner of our Best Feature category, and $2,000 is awarded to the winner of our Best Short category. In 2023, audience voting took place during the virtual Earth Day Encores programming (April 18-23).

2023 Winner

Between Earth & Sky

Director: Andrew Nadkarni (US, 2023, 26mins)

Nalini Nadkarni is a world-renowned ecologist who climbs trees in the rainforest canopy to study “what grows back” after an ecological disturbance. In 2015, her rope snapped on a research climb, and she fell fifty feet from a tree and nearly died. After making a miraculous recovery, Nalini begins to explore a new research subject — herself.

Between Earth & Sky follows Nalini as she prepares for another research climb. In the process, she unearths the roots of other disturbances she faced throughout her life. As she revisits the site of her fall in the Olympic Peninsula, her past, present, and future converge.

 

view past winners