“Before I Disappear” named audience award winner at SXSW Fest

PanARMENIAN.Net - Shawn Christensen’s Before I Disappear was named the audience award winner in the narrative feature competition at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Based on Christensen’s Oscar-winning 2012 short film Curfew, Disappear stars the writer-director as a man, hitting a low point, who is asked to look after his 11-year-old niece, The Hollywood Reporter said.

In the documentary feature competition, the audience award winner was Diana Whitten’s Vessel, a portrait of abortion activist Rebecca Gomperts.

Diego Luna’s Cesar Chavez, a drama about the famed labor organizer, which Lionsgate and its Pantelion Films are releasing theatrically March 28, took the audience award in the narrative spotlight category.

The audience awards follow the previously announced 2014 Jury Awards, which included Grand Jury winners Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers’ Fort Tilden for narrative feature, and Margaret Brown’s The Great Invisible for documentary feature.

Over the course of nine days, the 2014 SXSW Film Festival is screening a total of 133 features and 113 shorts.