We’ve just updated the Babelgum Online Film Festival page on our website.

If you’re curious to meet the people behind the camera, you can start by watching the Winners’ interviews we filmed in Tribeca, NYC on the day of the awards ceremony.

The newly designed page also contains footage of the event, links to each of the eight winning films and a showcase selection of interesting entries which you might have missed the first time round; this will be updated regularly so come back soon for a fresh bunch.

We are pleased to announce the winners of our second Online Film Festival, who received their awards last night at an awards ceremony at a private event held during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

The Professional Jury Awards were chosen by our panel of film experts Richard Abramowitz, Joe Bateman, Michael Cox, Tiziana Loschi and Carl Spence from the top 10 shortlisted films that received the most audience votes in each category.

The hand-crafted Murano glass trophies went to:

• Documentary: Joseph Cottrell-Boyce for GLUE

• Animation: Michael Patrick O’Hara for MR. HAPPY

• Mini Masterpiece: Lance Dumais for DECKLIN AND THE DARKNESS

• Short Film: Francesco Sperandeo for BAB AL-SAMAH

The Spike Lee Awards, chosen by the director himself from the top 10 shortlisted films, consisted of a cash prize of 20,000 Euros and a trophy. They went to:

• Documentary: Christina Voros for THE LADIES

• Animation: Guy Ben Shetrit for HEY

• Mini Masterpiece: Sherwin Akbarzadeh for I HAD A DREAM I WENT TO CONEY ISLAND

• Short Film: Antonino Valentino Sabella for MARADONA BABY

And the Looking for Genius Award, also chosen by Spike Lee among all the films in the festival, went to Francesco Sperandeo for BAB AL-SAMAH
He also wins 20,000 Euros in cash and a glass trophy.

All of the winning films can be seen on the brand new 2nd Babelgum Online Film Festival Winners channel on Babelgum web and mobile.

Congratulations to all the participants in the festival and to the lucky winners and as always, thanks to all our viewers who voted for their favorite entries over the past couple of months.

For more information about the winning films and the Festival, click here, and check out our Flickr page for more photos of the event.

Online and mobile voting closed at 1pm GMT last Thursday, April 2nd. Thanks to all of you who voted and helped to make this second edition of the Festival a success.

We are pleased to announce the films that received the most audience votes, which make up the shortlists to be judged by Spike Lee and the Professional Jury.

There are 10 films in each category, to see them all go to the Shortlist channel

8 of these films will win - one in each category will win the Spike Lee Award, and one in each category the Professional Jury Award.

In addition to these eight, one film will be picked by Spike Lee and the Professional Jury out of all the entries to the Festival to win the Looking for Genius Award.

The winners will be announced on April 27th and details of the awards ceremony are to be announced a week before that. So stay tuned!

Voting closes a week from now on Wednesday April 2nd at 1pm GMT.

It’s now easier than ever to watch and vote for entries, as new users are no longer required to download our player - our website has been completely redesigned and the video player is now Flash-driven. Votes are registered in an instant by clicking on the red “thumbs-up” symbol, and the whole process is quicker and simpler.

Spread the word…and keep giving your thumbs-up to the films you think should win!

If watching all these competition entries has brought out the would-be auteur in you, here’s your chance to see how you measure up to the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola or Pedro Almodòvar: our Cast Me! application on Facebook.

Just pick a genre, cast your friends in the starring roles, design the costumes, write the script and you’ll be ready to release your very own (virtual) cinematic masterpiece. With no worries about going over budget…

So come on, let’s see what you’re made of!

The sharper eyed among you may have noticed a new link at the top of this page: Festival Program. We’ve put together a list of all of the competition entries, divided into the four categories with direct links to each film.

There are over 650 of them - now all that’s left for you to do is find a few extra hours in the day to watch them all by April 2nd! And of course, don’t forget to hit the “Vote” button when you see something you like.

At last, after months of build-up as we received and processed hundreds of entries, it’s time to start screening and voting in the 2nd edition of our Online Film Festival.

The voting and screening period starts today, February 2nd at 1pm GMT*, and will continue for two months, until 1pm GMT on April 2nd 2009. At the end of this period, your top ten choices in each of the four categories will be shown to Spike Lee and the professional jury so they can pick the overall winners of those enticing cash prizes (over $125,000 in cash awards to be precise).

Once again, here’s your chance to influence today’s indie film scene and tomorrow’s crossover hits…so get voting!

*UPDATE: All videos for the 2nd Babelgum Online Film Festival were published but, due to some technical issues experienced with the voting widgets, voting was not fully enabled until February 6th at 5 PM GMT. Although voting was to commence from February 2nd, it has now been reset to the above date and time. Any votes before this date have not been counted.

This comes a little late due to technical hiccups but for anyone who missed Friday’s post on the Babelgum blog, I’m pleased to announce the launch of the 2nd Babelgum Online Film Festival.

Spike Lee is again chairman of the jury. At our press conference in Toronto he said, “The dilemma when you get out of film school or for anyone wanting to become a filmmaker is how am I going to get my work seen? Babelgum is just a great vehicle for young people all over the world”.

So whether you’re just out of film school or have a little more experience, now’s your chance to give your film career a real boost. Like Richard Recco, who has now signed a deal to develop Officer Down into a full-length feature as a result of winning the Short Film award.

This time we have 4 categories: Documentary, Short film, Animation and Mini Masterpiece - this last one is for quirky, provocative or experimental films of up to 5 minutes long.

We’ve got more good news to report from our “Looking for Genius” winner Andrea Lodovichetti.

After receiving his Babelgum award in Cannes for short film “Sotto il mio giardino (Under my garden)”, he’s now won 1st prize in the “International Discovery Award” at the Rhode Island International Film Festival 2008 in Providence, Rhode Island (USA).

This award came a few days after the same film won second place at the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy.

Congratulations Andrea! And good luck at Charlotte, North Carolina next month.

A very interesting in-depth interview with Andrea Lodovichetti was featured yesterday on i-ITALY, the Italian-American Digital Project website. As we all know, Andrea won the Babelgum Looking for Genius Award for his short film Sotto il mio giardino (Under my Garden).

In a conversation with fellow filmmaker Chiara Montalto, Andrea talks about his first forays into filmmaking, his inspirations and his thoughts on Italian cinema now and back in the days of neo-realism.