2017 Wisconsin Film Festival Wrap up – including numbers and Award winners

The Wisconsin Film Festival (“Festival”) was from March 30–April 6, 2017. It is the largest university-managed film festival in the nation and is presented by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arts Institute in association with the Department of Communication Arts.

The 20th annual Festival is tentatively scheduled for April 5-12, 2018 (subject to change).

The 2017 Festival by numbers:

Attendees: 29,294 (includes 2,522 school children, teachers and chaperones for field trips from over 20 schools | excludes non-ticketed special events)

Films shown: 140

International scope: Over 20 languages and 40 countries represented

Film guests: over 70

Screens/Venues: 7/5 (Venues: Barrymore Theatre, Chazen Museum of Art, Cinematheque, Marquee at Union South and Sundance Cinemas)

Volunteers: 188

Steep & Brew Audience Award Winners:

Steep & Brew has sponsored the Festival’s Audience Award winners since 2005. Audience members ranked films that they viewed. Here are this year’s favorites:

Documentary Feature: STEP | Amanda Lipitz

Narrative Feature: My Life as a Zucchini | Claude Barras

Restoration/Rediscovery: One Potato, Two Potato | Larry Peerce

Shorts Program: Portraits and Pictures from Wisconsin’s Own

The Bear and the Owl | Mark Davis

Brown Girl | Violet Jinqi Wang

Cliff, Superfan! | Diane Moy Quon

Big Screens, Little Folks Selection: Heidi | Alain Gsponer

Golden Badger Award Winners:

The Golden Badger Awards are chosen by a jury (2017: Kristin Catalano, David Klein and Eric J. Nelson) who watched the Wisconsin’s Own film selections. This year’s winners are:

Cliff, Superfan! | Diane Moy Quon

Daedalus and Icarus | Crestwood Elementary School students & Luke Bassuener

Lingua Absentia | Kate Raney and Jeremy Bessoff

Daedalus and Icarus was created by a group of 4th grade students from Crestwood Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin.