Austin Film Festival 2008 Jury award Winners

Animated Short

Winner: "Chainsaw" (director: Dennis Tupicoff)

Documentary Short

Winner: "Zietek" (director: Bartosz Blaschke)

Special Jury Award for Personal Expression and Advocacy: "Passages" (director: Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre)

Narrative Student Short

Winner: "Danzak" (writer/director: Gabriela Yepes)

Narrative Short

Winner: "Sikumi" (writer/director: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean)

Special Award for Ryan Andrews' Performance: "Frankie" (writer/director: Darren Thornton)

Special Jury Award: "Megatron" (writer/director: Marian Crisan)

Documentary Feature

Winner: Les Ninjas du Japon (director: Giommi Giovanni)

Narrative Feature

Winner: Lost & Found (writer: Maki Arai, writer/director: Nobuyuki Miyake)

Special Jury Award: Left (writer/director: Froukje Tan)

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Wrap Sheet: Scenes From AFF '08

"I write about things that interest me. It would be weird to write about things that don't interest me," Synecdoche, New York writer/director Charlie Kaufman said to a packed house at the Paramount Theatre on Tuesday night.

In his film Phantom Punch, and during the Q&A after the screening, director Robert Townsend (l) tried to penetrate some of the mysteries surrounding the life and death of heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston, a project he described as star "Ving Rhames' baby."

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle (r), the AFF Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking awardee, identified the differences between American and British audiences: "Britain doesn't really take cinema seriously. France, India, and America: You guys love film. It's in your DNA."

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (l) kicked off her Saturday afternoon talk about the process and the perils of adapting the hit young-adult vampire novel Twilight to the big screen by screening a long clip from the film (due in theatres Nov. 21).