IFP/Seattle Announces 2009 Spotlight Award Winners

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 winning project is "Photo Booth" from Timothy Watkins and Charlie Forsgren. The team were finalists last year at the Spotlight Award for their script, "Dishonesty."

"This year's Spotlight Award finalists offered a great combination of unique vision and strong core teams. We're excited to see how Tim and Charlie bring everything together for 'Photo Booth,'" said Michel Hansmire, IFP board member and judge of this year's Spotlight Award.

"I'm so excited and honored to have won the IFP Spotlight Award, especially from amongst so many really talented and creative filmmaking teams. The award is an amazing and generous collection of sponsorship and support that will allow our very ambitious project become a reality," said director and co-writer Timothy Watkins. "I am extremely grateful to the IFP board for giving us this opportunity and for seeing in us the potential to make a truly amazing film that will take full advantage of the Spotlight Award support and sponsorship package. It's a tremendous opportunity to grow as filmmakers and we hope to make everyone very proud."

Co-writer and producer Charlie Forsgren echoed the sentiments, "It feels great to be awarded the IFP Spotlight Award for 'Photo Booth.' We have assembled a great team and are looking forward to making a great movie. IFP is a wonderful organization and I would like to thank everyone involved in putting the spotlight award together. It is an incredible opportunity to work with so many great sponsors and really good people."

Past award winners of the Spotlight Award include "Night Blind" from Robert Parks (starring Lenny von Dohlen), "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, Clatter & Din, Kodak, Lance Rosen Esq, Modern Digital, Oppenheimer Cine Rental and Seattle Grip & Lighting.