Spotlight Award Winner Announced

IFP/SEATTLE
ANNOUNCES
2008 SPOTLIGHT AWARD Winner

Director Robert Parks wins Film Production Grant

Seattle, WA (November 24, 2008) – The IFP/Seattle announced the winner for this year’s Spotlight Award, a production grant featuring thousands of dollars of in-kind goods and services from the leading Northwest production companies. This year’s winner is Night Blind from Robert Parks.

“It is fantastic how many great scripts and teams were part of this year's Spotlight Award competition,” says Michel Hansmire, IFP board member and judge of this year’s Spotlight Award. “We are very excited about Robert Parks and his team and we look forward to seeing Night Blind on the big screen.”

After ten years in the software industry, Robert Parks is establishing himself as an exciting up-and-coming film talent. In addition to writing the excellent script for Night Blind, Robert wrote and directed the short film Follow (2005), shot by cinematographer Adam McDaid, and produced the short film Alexandra (2007), shot by McDaid and directed by Matt Daniels. Parks is an alumnus of The Film School, Seattle’s intense writing program, and the University of Washington, where he holds B.A.s in Creative Writing and Mathematics.

Cinematographer McDaid will be joining Parks again for Night Blind. Adam received his MFA in Cinematography in 2006 and worked under famed Stephen Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kaminski as his camera intern on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Adam’s recent work included Moving, the Seattle International Film Festival 2008 Fly Film directed by Megan Griffiths.

Night Blind will be produced by Sean West, whose producing credits include the award-winning documentary Harold’s Home Movies as well as work for clients including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Sephora, T-Mobile, Microsoft and the Pride Foundation.

Past award winners of the Spotlight Award include “Dry Rain” from Matthew Clark (starring James LeGros), Cheryl Slean’s “Diggers,” Dan Brown’s animated “Pierre” and John Helde’s “Hello” (starring Eric Stoltz).

This year’s IFP/Seattle Spotlight Award is being sponsored by: Alpha Cine Labs, Clatter + Din, Eastman Kodak, Modern Digital, Oppenheimer Cine Rental and Seattle Grip & Lighting.

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