The shortlist for the 2011 Screen Marketing and Distribution Awards has been announced and we are thrilled to have received two nominations.
Countdown to Zero was nominated for Premiere of the year. The Countdown to Zero premiere saw the film screen to audiences across the UK and Ireland simultaneously. The main Gala event took place at London’s BAFTA and served as the opening of the historic Global Zero London summit. A distinguished array of high-profile dignitaries, UK parliamentarians, and celebrities came and mingled both before and after the film to discuss the film and the lively Q&A discussion panel that followed. Oscar-winning producer Lawrence Bender moderated the panel, which featured Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, The Right Honourable Margaret Beckett, ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and Bruce Blair, Co-Founder of Global Zero. The panel was broadcast live via satellite and web-stream to the 70 participating venues (including screenings organised by Dogwoof Ambassadors) across the UK and Ireland, with questions being sent in by both text message and Twitter, from Aberystwyth to Dublin.
Restrepo was also nominated, for Best Documentary Release of the year. Winner of the 2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and heralded as possibly the best war film ever made, Restrepo focuses on the deployment of a US platoon in Afghanistan’s hostile Korengal Valley . Over the course of 15 months, the two filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger (author of The Perfect Storm) lived with the unit shadowing their every move, resulting in extraordinary footage. From spectacular combat and ambush scenes to difficult discussions with local village elders, civilian and military deaths, never before has such access been granted. Restrepo is as close as it gets to seeing what life as a soldier is really like. This year the world lost Restrepo director Tim Hetherington, the first British fatality in the Libyan conflict.
The winners of the 2011 Screen awards will be announced at the awards ceremony on September 27, at the prestigious London Hilton on Park Lane.
For more informtation on the awards visit the website: www.screenawards.co.uk.