Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival Winners Include Turkey’s ‘Love, Spells And All That’, UK’s ‘Sweetheart’

The Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival on Monday unveiled winners for its just-wrapped 31st edition, bestowing its Audience Award for narrative feature on Ümit Ünal’s Love, Spells and All That and its best first feature honor on Marley Morrison’s Sweetheart.

A total of 143 films including 33 features and five episodic series unspooled during the Ontario-based virtual festival that ran May 27-June 6, with a total of 70% of this year’s selected films by women/trans/non-binary directors.

“Sweetheart” Inside Out

Love, Spells centers on the reunion 20 years later of two woman who were separated from their families after a love affair as teens; one believes they were reunited because she cast a love spell on the other. Sweetheart is a comedic coming-of-age story about a socially awkward girl (Nell Barlow) forced to go on a family vacation only to discover after a chance meeting with a local lifeguard that she has a chance to fall in love for the first time.

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Other festival winners revealed today include Bobbi Jo Heart’s Fanny: The Right to Rock, which won Best Canadian Feature, and Alexander Liu’s A Sexplanation which took the Documentary Feature Audience Award.

The festival also said that Roberto Fatal’s project Do Digital Curanderas Use Eggs In Their Limpias? won the annual “Pitch, Please” contest. They receive a $5000 cash production grant sponsored by Netflix and a $10,000 in-kind package sponsored by Sim International, EP Canada, Bedtracks, Final Draft, Lewis Brinberg Hanet and Behind the Scenes Services.

Here’s the full list of winners:

Audience Awards

Narrative Feature

LOVE, SPELLS AND ALL THATDirector, Ümit Ünal

Documentary Feature

A SEXPLANATIONDirector, Alexander Liu

Short Film

NOOR AND LAYLADirector, Fawzia Mirza

Canadian Juried Awards

Emerging Canadian Artist

PITOC E ICINAKOSIANDirectors, Jos-Onimskiw Ottawa-Dubé and Gerry Ottawa

Best Canadian Short

YOU WILL STILL BE HERE TOMORROWDirector, Michael Hanley

Best Canadian Feature

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCKDirector, Bobbi Jo Hart

International Juried Awards

Best First Feature

SWEETHEARTDirector Marley Morrison