AUDIENCE AWARDS
Each year the Festival presents three Audience Awards selected and voted upon by Festival audience members. Ballots are issued at each screening (only those present can vote) and collected in our shiny ballot boxes located in the theater lobbies. The ballots are tallied throughout the Festival, with audience winners announced at the Closing Night Party for Best Feature, Best Documentary, and Best Short Film.

At the 27th Festival, the Audience Award for Best Feature was given to Pieter Kramer’s YES NURSE! NO NURSE!, the campy Dutch musical about an efficient nurse at odds with an evil landlord to keep her rest home for wayward citizens open. The screenings of YES NURSE! NO NURSE! were met with standing ovations, and the film's star Loes Luca led one audience in a sing-a-long.

The 2002 Audience Award for Best Documentary was given to Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer for BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN, a history of the pioneering gay leader of the civil rights movement. Kates accepted the award, while talking to Singer via cell phone from New York. "It is a great week to be queer!" she exclaimed, referencing last week's Supreme Court ruling and the pride festivities.

Debra Wilson's BUTCH MYSTIQUE won the Audience Award for Best Short Film. BUTCH MYSTIQUE is a documentary examination of butch-stud lesbian-identified women of African American descent.

Who will the winners be for the 2004 Audience Awards? That’s completely up to you. Enjoy the Festival!