The Babelgum Online Film Festival presented more than $130,000 in prizes last night at the TribecaFilm Festival in New York City.

Spike Lee, the honorary chairman of the Babelgum jury, presented the prizes. He said: “I was amazed at the quality of the films I have seen and happy to see the mission of the festival more and more fulfilled. An online and mobile competition focused on seeking out and rewarding emerging filmmaking talent has been long overdue.”

Other jurors were Richard Abramowitz of Abramorama; Joe Bateman of the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival; Michael Cox of Chelsea Lately; Tiziana Loschi of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival/Citia; and Carl Spence of the Seattle International Film Festival and Palm Springs International Film Festival.

The Spike Lee Awards - each with a cash prize of $26,000 (Euros 20,000) - are:

Looking for Genius Award

  • Bab Al Samah by Francesco Sperandeo (Italy)

Short Film

  • Maradona Baby by Nino Sabella (Italy)

Animation

  • Hey Animation Music Video by Guy Ben Shetrit (Israel)

Documentary

  • The Ladies by Christina Voros (US)

Mini Masterpiece

  • I Had a Dream I Went To Coney Island by Sherwin Akbarzadeh (Iran)

The professional jury award winners are:

Short Film

  • Bab Al Samah by Francesco Sperandeo (Italy)

Animation

  • Mr. Happy by Michael Patrick O’Hara (Canada)

Documentary

  • Glue by Joseph Cottrell-Boyce (UK)

Mini Masterpiece

  • Decklin And The Darkness by Lance Dumais (United States)

The second-annual festival, which promotes international short films by emerging talents, shows work on the web and mobile platforms. There were 651 films in the festival, 40 of which were shortlisted. All can be viewed at www.babelgum.com/online-film-festival.

Babelgum, which has offices in the US, UK, Ireland, France and Italy, also has music video awards and film content from partners including The Workbook Project, Cinetic Rights Management and Content Republic. The company also has a Digital Studio initiative to produce new original content such as oil documentary Downstream and wildlife series Extinction Sucks.

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