Palm Springs ShortFest winners include The Dinner, Jonathan's Home

The Dinner, about a pig farmer involved in a strange accident, also was an award winner in Venice. That came with a $2,000 cash prize.

Accepting the award, Perlmann said: “This is truly one of my best experiences of being at a festival with this film. This town truly supports independent cinema.”

In other top awards, Jonathan’s Home (Japan/Singapore) by Nathanael Carton won the Panavision Grand Jury Award, which comes with a camera package worth $60,000. Carton was part of the NYU/TischAsia Showcase, with filmmakers studying at Tisch’s branch in Singapore.

The Future Filmmaker Award with $2,000 cash went to Katie Wolfe’s This Is Her (New Zealand).

The full list of winners is below. Some prize winners also received non-cash prizes such as free studio time from DST Studios; scriptwriting software from MovieOutline.com; software from the Showbiz Software Store and Final Cut Studio 2 courtesy of Apple.

Palm Springs ShortFest festival director Darryl Macdonald noted that this year’s edition had a record number of crowds and a record number of attending filmmakers (for example, 24 filmmakers from Australia alone made the trek to California.)

“I’m in awe of the sheer amount of talent, not just raw talent but clearly developed talent working in the short film world today,” Macdonald said.

The festival showed 315 short films, and 2700 in the market, from June 23-29. ShortFest is the largest shorts festival in the US, and an Oscar-qualifying event.

Other winners:

Audience Favorite Live Action - Dandelion Dharma (US), Veronica DiPippo
Audience Favorite Documentary - Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics On Trial (USA, Jonathan Joiner, Robert H. Martin
Audience Favorite Animation - Lost And Found (UK), Philip Hunt

Best Live Action Short Under 15 Minutes
First Place ($2,000) - The Stars Don’t Twinkle in Outer Space (UK), Peter Thwaites
Second Place ($500) - The Man Inside (Ireland), Rory Bresnihan

Best Live Action Short Over 15 Minutes
First Place ($2,000) - The Taxidermist (UK), Bert & Bertie
Second Place ($500) - Love Hate (UK), Dylan Ritson, Blake Ritson

Best Animated Short
First Place ($2,000) - Cages (Mexico), Juan José Medina
Second Place ($500) - Juiced and Jazzed (US), Justin Webber

Best Documentary Short
First Place ($2,000) - Irene (Scotland), Lindsay Goodall
Second Place ($500) - Naming Pluto (UK), Ginita Jimenez

Best Student Live Action Short Under 15 Minutes
First Place ($2,000) - Cigarette Candy (US), Lauren Wolkstein
Second Place ($500) - My Four Inch Precious (US), Sou Yun Sim

Best Student Live Action Short Over 15 Minutes
First Place ($2,000) - The Lunch Box (US), Lubomir Mihailo Kocka
Second Place ($500) - Gloria & Eric (US), Nicolas Calzada

Best Student Animated Short
First Place - The Incident at Tower 37 (US), Chris Perry
Second Place - The Incredible Story of My Great Grandmother Olive (UK), Alberto Rodriguez

Best Student Documentary Short
First Place - Waiting for Women (Esperando Mujeres) (UK), Estephan Wagner
Second Place - Nutkin’s Last Stand (US), Nicholas Berger

Kodak Award For Best Student Cinematography
First Place ($1,000 in film stock) Alexa Caravia (cinematographer), Rare Fish (Indonesia)
Second Place ($500 in film stock) Nathan Levine-Heaney (cinematographer), My Four Inch Precious (US)

Alexis Award for Most Promising Student Filmmaker
A Son’s War (Czech Republic), Steven Edell
Special mentions to Brotherhood (US), directed by Brooke Sebold and Cigarette Candy (US) directed by Lauren Wolkstein

The Hard C High Five to Lo Fi Award
(for most entertaining low-budget story) Marry, F***, Kill (US), Douglas Lamore

Cinema Without Borders Best International Film Award
Kingsland #1 The Dreamer (UK), Tony Grisoni