The Ann Arbor Film Festival is proud to announce the award recipients for the 56th AAFF as chosen by our esteemed jurors: Ephraim Asili, Rea Tajiri, and Cecelia Condit. Thank you filmmakers and artists for bringing remarkable and diverse works to our festival and thank you to everyone who attended and participated in another successful festival week! The Ann Arbor Film Festival provides direct support to filmmakers. Our 2018 awards competition presents $22,500 to filmmakers

(Vicki Honeyman and her dog, Lucy at her store Heavenly Metal - PC: Courtney Sacco) Vicki Honeyman was the Executive Director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival for 15 years, spanning the 26th through the 40th festivals (1988 – 2002). During that time, she worked hard to keep the festival and its aesthetic alive. We caught up with Vicki before the screening of her special program Vick's Picks, a hand-picked retrospective takes viewers on a visual celebration of some of the most

Alisa Yang, whose film Sleeping with the Devil won the PROCAM Best Regional Filmmaker Award at the 55th AAFF last year, will return to the festival this year with her new project, a stop-motion paper animation music video for “Stop Speaking” by Andy Akiho, with a a text-to-speech composition and solo snare drum performed by Chelsea Tinsler. Watch her interview with Dana Denha on Let's Watch with the Ann Arbor Film Festival!

Through You, a new live-action VR experience exploring “love across a lifetime,” co-directed by Lily Baldwin and Saschka Unseld, will be an ongoing installation throughout the festival! The presentation will feature in two different locations and unique methods for viewing. The first will be in the lobby of the Power Center as a Renegade Lobby Experience for UMS's presentation of Nederlands Dans Theater and will be screened on two glass globes (March 20-24). The second wi

The 56th Ann Arbor Film Festival has an amazing lineup of 10 feature films that will be in competition this year! Documentaries take center stage this year, many of which grapple with everlasting wounds from past events. Those Who Come, Will Hear proposes a unique meeting with the last remaining speakers of several indigenous languages of Quebec—all threatened with extinction. Annik Leroy’s TREMOR - Es ist immer Krieg, a sensory journey between memory and nightmare, explore

As the executive director of the festival for 14 years (spanning from the 26th festival in 1988 to the 40th in 2002), Vicki Honeyman was critical in preserving the tradition and aesthetic of the festival. She also has an immense effect on the people who she meets and works with. Last year, a former AAFF intern, Matthew T. Anderson, wrote to us to share his experiences working under Vicki during his time with the festival: Hi [AAFF Team], I visited the Ann Arbor Film Festival

Check out the latest episode of Let’s Watch with the Ann Arbor Film Festival, in which host Dana Denha interviews AAFF Executive Director Leslie Raymond about her award-winning film Rife with Fire, as well as the upcoming 56th festival!

Support the AAFF by joining us for an exclusive celebration as we honor former AAFF Director Vicki Honeyman! Help us kick off the festival with appetizers and cocktails at the opening night fundraiser at Sava’s. This event takes place on Tuesday, March 20, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Afterwards, you are welcome and encouraged to join in the fun at the Opening Night Party in the Michigan Theater Grand Foyer, where a screening of the first Films in Competition will follow! Tickets

The 56th AAFF features many engrossing special programs that will complement the short and feature films-in-competition programs. Special programs will be held in the Michigan Theater Screening Room, unless otherwise noted below. On Wednesday, March 21, Robert Fulton’s Reality’s Invisible (1971), a poetic portrait of an iconic Le Corbusier building, will screen at 7:15 p.m. At 9:15 p.m., Memories of Disintegration features experimental Ibero-American works made on Video8,

The Big House, which just premiered at the 68th Berlin International FilmFestival, will have its North American Premiere at the 56th AAFF! The film was created by faculty and students from the University of Michigan Department of Screen Arts and Cultures, with New York–based Japanese filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda leading the creative team as co-director, co-producer, and chief editor. Soda is joined by co-directors Markus Nornes, Terri Sarris, and 14 student co-directors from the