Awards
Four total awards were presented at Rom Com Fest 2019. The winners are:
Jury Award
FEATURE FILM: IN REALITY – Director Ann Lupo, Writer Ann Lupo
SHORT FILM: REKINDLED – Director Erin Brown Thomas, Writers Erin Brown Thomas, Kelly Vrooman
Frolic Audience Award
FEATURE FILM: SUMMER NIGHT – Director Joseph Cross, Writer Jordan Jolliff
SHORT FILM: ANXIETY’S WILMA – Director Alexandra Kyle, Writer Alexandra Kyle
Frolic Audience Award
"The Entertainment Brand for the Modern Romance Fan"
Frolic is the fastest growing entertainment media brand in Romance with content, commerce and a community of diverse voices including authors, fans and storytellers who enjoy escaping into a great love story. Frolic is in your pocket, on your commute, in your reading nook, on your laptop, and in your social feed (in a totally non-creepy way). We believe in the power of optimism and the strength of a shared community. Where a good story can change your mood in an instant. Frolic believes in the power of Happily Ever Afters. Follow along on Instagram @onfrolic and Twitter @onfrolic.
Quote from CEO, Lisa Berger: "We at Frolic are passionate about bringing the Rom Com back and are thrilled to be partnering with RomCom Fest where we can delight in our favorite classic movies, alongside discovering the up and coming voices"
Jury Awards
The Rom Com Fest jury is comprised of rom com connoisseurs. There are two separate juries, one dedicated to judging the features and another for the shorts. There will be a winner in both categories, features and shorts, to receive the Jury Award of Rom Com Fest.
Features Jury
Sarah Ramos is a writer, director and actress, best known for appearing in Parenthood and The Affair. Ramos has written and directed short films The Arm, which won the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize for Comedic Storytelling and Fluffy (2016). Her love for romantic comedies is documented in her webseries City Girl, a rom-com that she wrote at age 12 in 2003 and produced in 2016. City Girl is currently being developed into a TV series, in which Ramos will produce more scripts written by children.
Amy Nicholson is a film writer and critic for Variety, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, and the host of the movie podcasts "Unspooled," "Zoom," "The Canon," and "Halloween Unmasked." Previously, she was the chief film critic for LA Weekly and MTV News. As a member of FIPRESCI, as well as the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, she has served on film festival juries for Sundance, Moscow, Cairo, Buenos Aires, and Eurasia. Her first book, Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor, was published by Cahiers du Cinema.
Katie Silberman is a writer and producer originally from Omaha, Nebraska. After graduating from Dartmouth College and receiving an MFA from Columbia University’s Film Program, Katie came to LA to work as the showrunner's assistant on the Fox sitcom BEN AND KATE. Following the show, Katie’s feature rewriting work on films such as HOT PURSUIT, HOW TO BE SINGLE, and MIDNIGHT SUN all led to co-producer credits.
After appearing on 2014’s Young and Hungry List, Katie’s script for SET IT UP landed on the 2015 Blacklist and the feature starring Zoey Deutch, Lucy Liu, Glen Powell, and Taye Diggs premiered on Netflix last summer. She also wrote New Line’s ISN’T IT ROMANTIC, starring Rebel Wilson, Adam Devine, and Liam Hemsworth, which premiered earlier this year and co-wrote Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut BOOKSMART, starring Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Devers for Annapurna, which will open this May. Katie will write a musical adaptation of THE PAPER BAG PRINCESS for Universal Studios, with Margot Robbie attached to star and Elizabeth Banks attached to direct. Most recently announced, Katie will write and produce a new Netflix rom com starring Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell, set to go into production in early 2020.
Julie Rapaport was named Co-Head of Amazon Studios’ Original Movies (in September 2018) alongside Ted Hope and Matt Newman. Amazon Original Movies is an initiative by Amazon Studios to produce and acquire original movies for both theatrical and streaming release.
Rapaport oversees Amazon Studios’ newest division focused on expanding the current slate with films appealing to wider audiences. Rapaport also oversees the Studios’ new streaming initiative focused on creating excellent films for release on Prime Video. Since 2015, Amazon Studios has enjoyed the critical and commercial success of films such as Golden Globe and Oscar-winning Manchester By the Sea, and Oscar-nominated The Big Sick. While at Amazon Studios, Rapaport has overseen Beautiful Boy starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet, Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying, Marc Webb’s The Only Living Boy in New York, and Mike White’s Brad’s Status.
Rapaport began her career at the William Morris Agency in the agent trainee program. She then worked at The Weinstein Company, where she rose to Senior Vice President of Production and Development, and oversaw the production of numerous films, including: Lion, Burnt, Silver Linings Playbook, August: Osage County, The Giver, and Big Eyes. In 2014, Rapaport was featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen “35 Under 35” list. She graduated from Tufts University in 2006 where she majored in English and minored in Film Studies. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and dog.
Shorts Jury
Alanna Bennett is a writer for The CW's Roswell, New Mexico and a rom-com fanatic. Her work as a cultural critic and reporter has appeared on BuzzFeed News, Teen Vogue, Vulture, TV Guide, and more. Alanna studied Cinema Studies at Oberlin College and seeks to tell stories that move conversations forward while providing a balm to the daily stresses of human existence. She believes that the personal, the political, and the pop cultural are all deeply connected, and that we should all try to be a little bit more like Nora Ephron and Ava DuVernay.
Alicia Swiz is passionate educator and dynamic storyteller committed to creating spaces for women’s voices to be amplified. Drawing from personal experience and academic training, Alicia facilitates dialogues that inspire critical thinking about gender through comedy, storytelling, and media literacy. A Jersey girl by way of North Carolina, Alicia is most recently from Chicago where she created Feminist Happy Hour, a comedy showcase for women identified performers. She is the founder and curator of SlutTalk, an educational storytelling project rewriting the narrative on women and sex. A pop culture enthusiast, Alicia’s writing has been published by Esquire, Chicago Reader, Role Reboot and others. She currently serves as the Program Director for the Virginia Tech Women’s Center. You can find her on the internet @aliciaswiz // @wearesluttalk // @feministhappyhr
Millie De Chirico is a fifteen-year veteran of the Programming Department at Turner Classic Movies. Her late-night film franchise TCM Underground, which showcases the best in cult cinema, is about to celebrate its lucky 13th anniversary in October. She also handles programming for Silent Sunday Nights, TCM Imports, and many other key spotlights on the network. She was one of the programmers and architects of FilmStruck, the former streaming service created by TCM and The Criterion Collection and has provided film programming and writing for A24, Alamo Drafthouse, and the TCM Classic Film Festival.
Heather Maidat wrote the romantic comedies Bad Boys Crazy Girls starring Kevin Dunn, Adam Pally, Sarah Burns, Reid Scott, and Bobby Moynihan (Tribeca Film Festival Premiere, IFC Films/Netflix, as Slow Learners), Mr. Miracle starring Rob Morrow, and Sundays at Tiffany’s starring Alyssa Milano and Stockard Channing. She has written for the television shows Mad Magazine, Girls Behaving Badly with Chelsea Handler and comedy team Frangela, Shipmates with Chris Hardwick, The Love Lounge with Loni Love, Filter with Beth Stern, The Yesterday Show, History IQ, Living Live with Florence Henderson and Meshach Taylor, and MTV specials. Some of her humor and relationship articles include Deja Vow (The Huffington Post), Modern Wrecknology (MSN), Do Not Disturb (Blacktable), Shalloween (Fresh Yarn), The Sudden Impact of Love (Fox Films Intl.), and The TV Dating Dilemma (Sirensmag). Heather began her career working in nearly every department in production or on the crew of projects like The Chris Rock Show, John Leguizamo’s Emmy Nominated Freak for HBO, two Oscar nominated documentaries, Brazil’s documentary series Free Jazz, the indie film Wicked City, for the critically acclaimed, Grammy nominated Red Hot Organization, the sitcom Madigan Men, commercials, music videos, and Saturday Night Live. Heather recently completed writing the romantic comedy novel Thank You for Not Wasting My Time and writes weekly at www.HeatherMaidat.com