Johnny Was wins BEST FEATURE Tacoma Film Festival

Johnny Was - just named as Best Feature winner by Tacoma Film Festival. Big ups to all who worked on it.

Below excerpt from News Tribune:

Tacoma Film Festival hands out awards

The envelope, please.
And the Grandie goes to …

(Drum roll)

There really were envelopes opened and drum rolls – courtesy of a three-piece combo – heard when awards were handed out Thursday evening to the best pictures of the Tacoma Film Festival. The winners, selected by a panel of judges, were announced at a crowded closing-night gala held at the Crystal Ballroom in the old Winthrop Hotel downtown.

The festival’s top prize, dubbed the Grandie after the Grand Cinema which organized the week-long, 55-film event, is a handsome crystal column topped by a five-point star. It’s an impressive object, heavy as an Oscar.

The festival, which ran from Oct. 6 through Thursday, was itself judged to be a winner. “It has been tremendously successful,” said Michel Rocchi, president of the board of directors of the Grand.

There were a number of sell-out screenings, including the opening-night feature, “Johnny Was,” and the locally produced documentary, “Finding Thea,” about the life and times of Thea Foss.

“Johnny” and “Thea” each won a Grandie. “Johnny,” a gritty British crime drama about Irish Republican Army bombers battling Jamaican drug dealers in Brixton, won the best feature award.