Dutch Film ‘Character’ Wins Top L.A. Fest Honor

The grand jury prize at the Los Angeles International Film Festival, which for the first time offered a competitive section, went to Mike van Diem’s “Character,” a Dutch period film about a young man confronting his ruthless father. A special mention went to Peter Kosminsky’s “No Child of Mine,” a British drama dealing with child abuse.

The festival’s three audience awards went to Bruno Barreto’s feature “Four Days in September,” based on the 1969 kidnapping of the American ambassador to Brazil, played by Adam Arkin; Rob Bindeler’s documentary “Hands on a Hard Body,” about a contest to win a new Nissan truck; and Joel Moffett’s short documentary “My Body,” about a man coming to terms with his sexual orientation.

The American Film Institute announced Friday morning that its festival experienced a 30% increase in attendance over last year’s event. More than 30,000 people attended the weeklong festival, and more than one-third of its screenings were sold out. The festival was halved from last year’s, both in length and in the number of films shown, approximately 50. John Fitzgerald, the AFI Fest’s new director, said Friday: “We are extremely pleased to have exceeded our own expectations.”

Stan Schofield’s “Cost of Living,” a gritty look at a female drifter, won the $20,000 studio prize, donated by Miramax Films, for the best feature in the festival’s New Visions category.

The Screen Actors Guild prizes for best actress and actor went to Edie Falco as the drifter in “Cost of Living” and to Joe Russo as one of the brothers who own a Cleveland hairpiece business in the dark comedy “Pieces,” which he directed with his brother Anthony. Peter Turman won the $1,000 Directors Guild prize for best first-time director for “Without a Map,” about a struggling writer with a problematic girlfriend, and James McManus took the $1,000 Writers Guild award for best first-time screenwriter for his work on “The Big Empty,” a dark comedy triangle involving a private eye who involves himself in the lives of a suspicious wife and her philandering husband.

The Short Cinema Journal contributed a $1,500 best short film prize, which it awarded to Tessa Sheridan’s “Is It the Design on the Wrapper?,” about a scrappy 6-year-old girl who gets the better of a bubble gum lady.