Next year’s festival will run June 14-18, 2023
June 19, 2022 (PROVINCETOWN, Mass.) – The Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF)
announced today the winners of this year’s Warner Bros. Discovery Audience Awards, the John
Schlesinger Awards and Short Film Prizes.
Additionally, the festival announced its status as an Academy Award-qualifying festival. This year
and moving forward, short films that receive Best Narrative Short, Best Queer Short, and Best
Documentary Short awards will now be automatically eligible to enter the Short Films competition
for the concurrent season of the Oscars.
Warner Bros. Discovery Audience Awards
Warner Bros. Discovery Audience Awards are voted on by in-person festival attendees.
Warner Bros. Discovery Audience Award / Best Narrative Feature: GOOD LUCK TO YOU,
LEO GRANDE, directed by Sophie Hyde
Warner Bros. Discovery Audience Award / Best Documentary Feature: ESTHER NEWTON
MADE ME GAY, directed by Jean Carlomusto
John Schlesinger Awards
These juried awards are presented to a first-time narrative and documentary feature filmmaker.
The awards include a cash prize of $1,000 to each filmmaker.
John Schlesinger Narrative Award: Max Walker-Silverman (A LOVE SONG)
Producer David Hinojosa, Narrative Schlesinger Juror, said: “A LOVE SONG is an astonishingly
accomplished first film – understated, compassionate and achingly moving. Max Walker-
Silverman is a thrilling new voice.”
John Schlesinger Documentary Award: Alex Pritz (THE TERRITORY)
Filmmaker Annie Sundberg, Documentary Schlesinger Juror, said: “The Territory is both a
profound and layered work of urgent activism and a beautifully realized cinematic feat. But the
real gift of this film is the transfer of authorship. As things turn rawer toward the end, the film
transforms into a verite thriller told firsthand by the people at the center of the battles, the Uru-eu-
wau-wau. The subjects become the filmmakers and the results are unforgettable.”
Juried Short Awards
The 2022 shorts jury consisted of a skilled group of film professionals. Angela Tucker is an
Emmy Award-winning documentary and fiction filmmaker whose projects feature
underrepresented people in unconventional ways. Ayah Bazian is a Palestinian filmmaker and
programmer based in Dubai. She currently works as a senior programmer at Argo, a new short
film streaming platform. Howard Karren is an arts and film writer, curates the Film Art Series at
Waters Edge Cinema, and was an editor at Premiere and The Provincetown Banner.
Best Narrative Short: FANMI, directed by Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers & Carmine Pierre-
Dufour
Best New England Short: MONSIEUR LE BUTCH, directed by Jude Dry
Best Documentary Short: HOLDING MOSES, directed by Rivkah Beth Medow
Best Animated Short: POTTERO, directed by Lindsey Martin
Best Queer Short: TOO ROUGH, directed by Sean Lionadh
Special Jury Prize: CANS CAN’T STAND, directed by Matt Nadel & Megan Plotka
As previously announced, Luca Guadagnino (CALL ME BY YOUR NAME) was presented with
the 2022 Filmmaker on the Edge Award in conversation with filmmaker John Waters; Dale
Dickey (A LOVE SONG) was presented with the Excellence in Acting Award by film critic Thelma
Adams; and Jenny Slate (MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON) and Bowen Yang (FIRE
ISLAND) both received the Next Wave Award in a panel with comedian Judy Gold. Additional
guests included Andrew Ahn, John Cooper, Eugene Hernandez, Marcus Hu, John Cameron
Mitchell, Josh O’Connor, Amy Pascal, Parker Posey, Matt Rogers, and Christine Vachon.
The festival opened with Sophie Hyde’s GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE and closed with
Guadagnino’s SALVATORE: SHOEMAKER OF DREAMS. PIFF ran June 15-19 in Provincetown,
Massachusetts.
Next year’s festival will run June 14-18, 2023.