Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Festival 2022 Winners Include ‘Please Baby Please,’ ‘Mars One’

As seen in Variety.

“Please Baby Please” and “Mars One” are among the winners of the 40th Anniversary Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival. The organization  announced the honorees during its award ceremony Wednesday.

The L.A.-based nonprofit, which promotes LGBTQ filmmakers and projects, ran its 40th edition festival from July 14-24. Over the course of the festival, 30,000 people attended its programming and more than 200 films screened, including 42 world premieres. The festival opened with Billy Porter’s directorial debut “Anything’s Possible” and closed with the LGBTQ slasher film “They/Them.”

“Please Baby Please,” directed by Amanda Kramer and starring Andrea Riseborough and Henry Melling, took the outstanding North American feature prize, while Brazilian director Gabriel Martins’ family drama “Mars One” won the outstanding international feature award. Audience award winners included “Unidentified Objects” by Juan Felipe Zuleta and documentary feature “Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story.” Select award winners will be available to stream on Outfest’s website for a 72-hour period, via streaming packages with prices ranging from $8 to $24.99.

During the festival, Outfest also awarded over $100,000 in grant and prize money to LGBTQ filmmakers to continue their work. The Colin Higgins Youth Filmmaker Grant awarded $15,000 grants to Alexis G. Zall, Eliana Pipes and Jacob Roberts, while the #Outfest40 Concord Pitch Competition awarded Chanelle Tyson, Zoë Hodge and Miles Lopez and Jonathan De La Torre a collective $50,000 to produce short films based on Concord Originals’ library. In addition, the winners for the grand jury’s U.S. narrative short, documentary short, outstanding international narrative short, international feature and North American feature received a $1000 cash prize awarded in partnership with Entertainment Partners, while the grand jury prize for documentary feature received a $5,000 cash prize.

“This incredible response to this year’s festival, our 40th-anniversary milestone, has been nothing short of stunning. As we reflect on the decades before us and the decades that lie ahead for Outfest, we are proud to have brought together this heart-felt and inclusive festival for our members, fans, and filmmakers, and are in awe of the sense of community and solidarity that has been palpable at each and every event,” Outfest executive director Damien S. Navarro said in a statement. “We celebrate our 2022 winners, and as an organization we leave this festival more energized than ever to continue to listen to our queer family and stand beside them in our fight to move forward as a community.”

View the full list of winners below.

Audience Awards

Best Documentary Short: “Cans Can’t Stand,” directed by Matt Nadel and Megan Plotka

Best Documentary Feature: “Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story,” directed by Nicola Marsh and Giovanni Reda

Best Narrative Short: “Troy,” directed by Mike Donahue

Best Narrative Feature: “Unidentified Objects,” directed by Juan Felipe Zuleta

Best Platinum Short: “Remnants,” directed by Primo Justice Schiappa

Best Episodic: “Sleep With Me,” directed by Samantha Lee

Grand Jury Awards

Paul D. Lerner and Stephen Reis Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Documentary Feature: “Sirens,” Directed by Rita Baghdadi

North American Narrative Feature: “Please Baby Please,” directed by Amanda Kramer

Performance in a North American Narrative Feature: Matthew Jeffers, “Unidentified Objects”

Screenplay in a North American Narrative Feature: Juan Pablo González, Ana Isabel Fernández and Ilana Coleman, “Dos Estaciones”

International Narrative Feature: “Mars One,” directed by Gabriel Martins

Screenplay in a International Narrative Feature: Marino Biasin, “Sublime,”

Performance in a International Narrative Feature: Aamu Milonoff, “Girl Picture”

International Narrative Short: “Warsha,” directed by Dania Bedir

Outstanding Documentary Short: “Love, Barbara,” directed by Byrdie O’Connor

Outstanding U.S. Narrative Short: “Work,” directed by April Maxey

Special Programming Awards

Emerging Talent: Yusuf Shadeed Nasir, “Regret to Inform You”

Special Programming Award for Freedom: Uyra: The Rising Forest

Artistic Achievement: Mohammad Shawky Hassan, “Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?”