2 of 4 CIFF Audience Awards go to Chicago filmmakers

Joanna Rudnick

Two of the four coveted Audience Choice Awards of the 50th Chicago Film Festival went to Chicago filmmakers now living on the West Coast. Kartemquin director Joanna Rudnick’s “On Beauty,” won the award for Best Short Film, out of 68 short films from 50-plus countries and Gabe Polsky’s Best Feature Documentary “Red Army” won out of a field of 19.

CIFF was the first festival and the first prize for Rudnick’s half-hour doc. “On Beauty” is about famous former New York fashion photographer Rick Guidotti’s campaign to change the way we see the beauty in ethnic differences.

It’s told through the stories o three women with genetic syndromes living in Africa, Upstate New York and the Middle East who are often excluded or misrepresented in popular media.

“It was a long five-year journey for Joanna’s film,” says Kartemquin’s Tim Horsburgh.  ‘Joanna had two children, underwent surgery for the BRCA1 cancer gene that causes breast and ovarian cancer, made famous by Angelina Jolie’s surgery, and moved to San Francisco.”

Next festival stop for “On Beauty” will be Doc NYC, Nov. 13-20, at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.

Polsky’s “Red Army” is played out on Olympic ice, chronicling the rise and fall of the Red Army Hockey Team, the Soviet Union’s most powerful sports dynasty.  It serves as a window to the larger story about the Russians dealings with American during and after the Cold War.

“Red Army” premiered at 2014 Cannes, won an Emmy and has screened at festivals throughout the world.  Glencoe native Polsky, whose parents are Russian, played hockey while he attended Yale, graduating in 2002.

The Audience Choice awards are voted by ballot that was given to audiences at every public screening during the Festival’s two-week run.  Audiences ranked films on a five-point scale; votes were tallied and averaged.  Films receiving the highest averages were declared winners.

The Audience Award for the Best Narrative English Language Feature was “The Imitation Game,” (UK/USA) and Best Narrative Foreign Language Feature was “The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared” (Sweden).