Greenwich Film Fest awards top prize to Conn. native’s COVID-19 documentary
GREENWICH — International is in the name; yet it was a documentary by a Connecticut native about COVID-19’s brutal impact on New York City’s hospitals that garnered Matthew Heineman the Greenwich International Film Festival’s top prize.
“The First Wave,” which earned the GIFF’s 2022 Best Social Impact Film Award at its virtual ceremony last week, documents how the pandemic hit the city’s hospitals over the first four months of the first wave of the virus in 2020. It was produced through National Geographic and was shortlisted for an Oscar.
“We are proud to present Matt Heineman with this prestigious award,” said Ginger Stickel, the festival’s executive director. “He exemplifies the type of filmmaker we like to honor, one who has committed his time and energy to creating films that inspire and impact positive social change.”
Stickel praised the film for shedding light on “the personal and scientific conflicts of the families and healthcare workers hit hardest during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
A former resident of both New Canaan and Darien and a graduate of Brunswick School in Greenwich, Heineman’s work has earned awards from GIFF before, in 2016 and again last year.
In an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media in January, Heineman called “The First Wave” the hardest film he has ever made but also the one he is most proud of. He captured months of 18-hour workdays at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens.
“It wasn’t how we got here or who’s at fault — I very much wanted to take the politics out of it, and follow individual stories,” Heineman told Hearst. “I think one of the greatest tragedies of COVID is how politicized it became and even at that point was becoming . ... There’s an alternate universe in which COVID could’ve brought our country together. But instead, it fractured an already-fractured country, and that was really, really sad. So I just wanted to highlight the human beings at the center of it.”
The award includes a $10,000 cash prize that was underwritten by Nick and Ann Young. The Youngs have been longtime
GIFF supporters and this is the eighth year they have underwritten the award.
This was not the only award given during the virtual ceremony on April 27. The GIFF gave its Narrative Honorable Mention award to “Casablanca Beats,” which was directed by Nabil Ayoch and is about a teacher, and former rapper, working with his students to break free from the weight of traditions placed upon them and embrace hip hop culture. And the Documentary Honorable Mention went to “Young Plato” by directors Declan McGrath and Neasa Ní Chianáin. That film focuses on the stories of an inner-city Irish community in Belfast.
The GIFF’s awards jury, led by actress and humanitarian Deborra-lee Furness, picked the winners from among eight films. The jury, which screened all the films, also included writer and actor Chris Erric Maddox, documentarian S. Casper Wong and philanthropist Ann Young.
The awards ceremony included a Q-and-A session with the nominated filmmakers and is available at www.greenwichfilm.org.
And though the festival continues to be virtual, one of the most high profile parts of the festivities will be returning in May with a star-studded evening in Greenwich.
Internationally famous composer, singer, actor, lyricist and director Lin-Manuel Miranda will be the guest of honor at the GIFF’s annual Changemaker Gala on May 25. The gala will take place at L’Escale in downtown Greenwich.
According to Stickel, cast members from “Encanto,” the Oscar-winning movie with original songs by Miranda, and his legendary Broadway show “Hamilton,” will perform during the gala. And the band MOJO and DJ April Larkin will play the gala’s after-party.
The gala has been a major part of past film festivals in town and Miranda joins a list of past honorees that includes Oscar-winner Renée Zellweger, Ashley Judd, Harry Belafonte, Eva Longoria Baston, Mia Farrow, Freida Pinto, Abigail Breslin and more.