Voices: Women + Film Festival Announces Audience Award Winners For 2015

The Voices: Women + Film Festival concluded its fifth year this past Sunday, after a week of films, guests and discussions celebrating National Women’s Month at the Sie FilmCenter and presented by the Denver Film Society. Today, the festival's organizers announced the winners of their audience voting for Best Narrative Film and Best Documentary film screened at the festival. "Every single film in this year's festival deserves applause for artistry and compelling story-telling," says festival co-founder and producer Tammy Brislin. "The audience had some wonderful works to choose from and the winners are representative of our vision and mission: to present entertaining and thought-provoking films that expand the horizons for our Voices audience." Here are the two winners:

Best Narrative Film
The Keeping Room 
USA – Directed by Daniel Barber
Brit Marling stars in this Civil War drama that is examined from an atypical female point of view. Marling gives a tough performance as a young Southern woman who must tend to her family's farm in the dying days of the American Civil War, with the help of her sister Louise and their slave Mad. These three very different women unite as they defend their home and each other from two rogue soldiers who have broken off from the fast-approaching Union Army.
The Keeping Room will be released in theaters this fall via Drafthouse Films.

Best Documentary Film
How I Got Over 
USA – Directed by Nicole Boxer
Can telling your story save your life? Fifteen formerly homeless women craft an original play, based on their harrowing true-life stories, to be performed one night only at the Kennedy Center. The women of N Street Village — a community for addiction recovery -= have never performed on stage in their lives. Yet, guided by teachers from the Theater Lab School of the Dramatic Arts, they discover their untapped artistic talents and reckon with their traumatic histories.  How I Got Over is available on VOD via the film's website, higodoc.com.

For more news on Voices and additional screenings throughout the year, visit the Denver Film Society webpage at denverfilm.org.