Today is the day that the Jubilee Awards ceremony is held. Over 200 films were submitted, and tonight the field was narrowed down to one Best of Festival Jubilee Award Winner, who received a check for $101,000. But first, there were more films to be seen. First thing in the morning, Rescue Haiti’s Children sponsored a screening of ‘Rescued: The Movie’ and included a celebration and testimony of families who have adopted children from around the world. The big surprise of the week turned out to be Seasons of Grey. The reactions I got ranged from, I had never heard of this film until watching it today, to I was looking forward to it, and it blew my expectations out of the water. Just before dinner, Geoff Botkin gave us a look at how his family views films together, by taking through a few minutes of the film, “How to Train Your Dragon.”

The Jubilee Awards ceremony began at 7:30 p.m., with performances again by Charlie Zahm and George Sarris. Soon, awards began to be announced. ‘Lady Jane Grey’ took runner up in the Short film category, and ‘The Jester’ took the Short Film Chrystal Award. In Great Commission, ‘The Koren: Forgotten but not Forsaken’ took runner up, and Two Hats was awarded the Great Commission Jubilee Award. ‘Crying Wolf,’ which has been highly acclaimed all week, was awarded the Jubilee award in the Creation division, and ‘Check This Out’ came in as runner up. After a brief break to watch some the Hazardous Journeys trilogy of shorts again, the Best Feature announcement was made. Unsurprisingly, Courageous took the Jubilee trophy, and slightly more surprising, 7 Days in Utopia took the runner up. Two great films by Colin Gunn headlined the Documentary category, Captivated (which took runner up) and Indoctrination (which received the Jubilee award).

Finally, the two most hotly anticipated awards were announced: Audience Choice, and the $101,000 Best of Festival award. The Audience choice film won by a landslide—it went to ‘Seasons of Grey.’ This feature about a modern day Joseph will have a theatrical release soon. The runner up for the Best of Festival award went to IndoctriNation, and the winner of the 2012 SAICFF $101,000 best of festival award went to Courageous! The film from the Kendrick brothers has been at the top of the DVD sales leader board for some time. If the Oscars snubbed George Lucas when he produced the evolutionary but best-selling masterpiece Star Wars, the Christians will not make the same mistake. Courage has triumphed!

In Christ,

Jonathan Potter

Today was a major day for viewing films. Here at the festival, the Young Filmmaker and Short Film categories are heavily anticipated, and both began showing today. After lunch, the theater room showing the short films was filled to capacity. By the end of the day, all the feature films and most of the documentaries have shown at least once. By the end of tomorrow, most of these same films will have been shown twice. There are usually four different theaters showing different categories of film at the same time, so attendees usually get to see about half the films. Because I’ve seen about 10 of the films before (significant thanks to the National Movie Night program, which screened several of them recently).

The evening program included performances by Charlie Zahm and George Sarris, as well as the worldwide premier of three of Vision Forum’s new short films, shot by the Leclerc brothers in Iceland: Dominion, Risk, and Manhood. Doug Phillips also cast his vision for the Hazardous Journeys Society. To sum, National Geographic and other nature programming TV and media which promote evolutionistic scientism have had the upper hand for two long. This is my Father’s world, and the Hazardous Journeys Society exists to document the world where Christ is Lord and King. Mr. Phillips called for independent filmmakers to take teams all over the globe, to 7 continents, 5 oceans, and 195 countries by the year 2022. In the next 24 months, Vision Forum hopes to take a venture on the Virgin Galactic private space shuttle to the next frontier: space.

In Christ,

Jonathan

Today was the first day of the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, or SAICFF. Two special events happened this morning: Vision forum offered a special photography class for attendees of the Academy, and one of the producers held a special pre-screening of a yet to be released film, ‘Remember’. After a brief lunch break, we headed over to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center for the first session of films. Six categories of film opened in the afternoon, followed by the opening ceremonies around 6:30 p.m. The evening premieres included Captivated, Crying Wolf, Detained, and Seasons of Grey. Charlie Zahm also gave a concert on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Voting for the audience choice has begun!

In Christ,

Joanthan